


The Winchesters Plus One: Season One

by Vampire_Chick25



Series: Winchester Plus One [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 201,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampire_Chick25/pseuds/Vampire_Chick25
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the episodes of Supernatural written out, just with a little twist from me. A third character. A third female character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this story has been up on FanFiction for a bit, so I thought I'd post it over here as well. This is the start of my idea of the series. The episodes are pretty much the same, I've just added another charater. Emma, Dean's girlfriend. And we all know Dean is a bit of a player, so it was fun to write how Emma got through that. So here it is. My version of ther pilot. I hope you like.
> 
> SYNOPSIS  
> Two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, witness their mother's paranormal death as children and grow up trained to fight by a distraught father who wants nothing more then to hunt down the thing that killed his wife. Sam escapes to college to start a new, normal life, but gets pulled back in after Dean and his girlfriend Emma Grey, who also witnessed the death of the boy’s mother at the young age, show up on his doorstep to tell him the boy’s father is missing. Following clues from an eerie phone message from him, the group travel to a small town and encounter a vengeful spirit called the "Woman in White" who then starts to haunt Sam.

Its late night in Lawrence, Kansas, and a mother is walking into her youngest son rooms to say goodnight to him. With her she carries two more young children. One, her oldest son, the other, the young girl who lives next door and her oldest’s best friend.

“Come one, let’s say goodnight to your brother,” she says as she drops both kids to the floor. The march up to the young kids crib, standing over him. his older brother, showing all the affection he has, leans down and kisses his little brother on the forehead.

“Good night Sam,” he mutters to his little brother.

“Good night, love,” his mother says, taking the boys place and kissing little Sam on the forehead. A new figure enters this pleasant scene, stopping in the doorframe.

“Hey Dean,” the figure says to his oldest son.

“Daddy!” Little Dean happily exclaims, running to his father and jumping into his open arms. The young girl, not blood but still a part of this family scene, stays close to the mother with a happy smile on her face.

“Hey buddy! What do ya think?” the father asks the young boy in his arms. “You think Sammy’s read to toss around a football yet?”

“No, daddy,” the kid replies, laughing.

“No?” the father replies jokingly.

“You got them?” the mother asks, walking to her husband with the young girl at her side.

“I got them,” he says as his wife walks from the room, leaving him alone with the three kids.

“Sweet dreams, Sam,” the father calls lovingly as he turns off the light and leaves the room with the two older kids. And little Sam lies there, sleep ready to take him as he watches the mobile above his head, turning all by itself. But there’s something not quite right in this room as the clock stops and the nightlight begins to flicker.

@~~>~~~

Across the hall, in little Sam’s parent’s room, the baby monitor is switched on and begins to admit static as a faint crying begins. Like any mother, Mary is woken by this sound and switches on the light at her bedside.

“John?” she whispers over her shoulder, expecting to find her husband beside her. But the bed is empty. Getting up, she walks across the hall to her youngest’s room, investigating the cries. When she gets there, she can clearly see the figure of a man, back turned to her and standing over her sons crib.

“John, is he hungry?” she asks the man who can be no one but her husband. But he doesn’t turning to face her.

“Shhh,” he offers as a reply over his shoulder.

“Okay.” And she leaves her baby with his father, heading back to her room. But a flickering light catches her eyes. Moving to stop the flicker, Mary notices something else as she taps the light. The television is still on downstairs. She can hear the sound of an old movie playing. Thinking that her husband has simply left the TV running, Mary starts down the stairs to switch it off. But when she gets there, what she sees is not just the TV, but her husband, asleep and snoring on his chair. But if he’s down here, who’s up there with her son?

Without hesitation, Mary races back upstairs towards her son’s room, crying out his name.

“Sammy! Sammy!” But once she reaches her sons room, there’s something new there. Something that causes her to scream involuntarily. A scream that wakes her husband upstairs. Fearing for his wife and his family, John jumps up and races towards the scream

“Mary? Mary! Mary!” he screams as he runs. Following the source of the scream, John runs into his youngest’s room to find… nothing.

Still cautious and wanting to check on his son, John walks over to little Sammy’s crib and looks down at him.

“Hey Sammy. Okay,” he mutters soothingly to his youngest. Watching him, John notices something red drip onto the sheets beside Sam’s head. Examining the substance, John sticks his finger in it, and the red continues to drip onto the back of his hand. Turning his head up to find what is causing the drip, John backs up in shock at what he sees.

His wife is there, on the ceiling. Pinned there, looking down at him. And he now knows the red substance is blood, dripping from a gash across her stomach.

“No! Mary!” John screams, not caring that he is probably waking the rest of the house. Before John can make any sort of movement, Mary suddenly bursts into flames, the fire starting from her and spreading across the ceiling. The sound of Sam’s cries pulls John back as he picks him up, carrying him out of the room and into the hall where he is met by his oldest Dean and his young friend Emma Grey.

“Daddy!” The older boy cries out, seeing the flames behind his father. Thinking quickly, John hands the little boy in his arms to Dean.

“Take your brother and Emma outside as fast as you can! Don’t look back! Now Dean, go!” Listening to his orders, Dean and Emma run downstairs and out of the house as John makes his way back to Sam’s room and his wife.

“Mary! No!” he screams again, trying to get at his wife. But the whole room suddenly erupts in flames, tendrils of fire reaching out towards him as if stopping him from entering.

Outside of the house, Dean and Emma are now safely out of the front door, Sam still held tight in Dean’s grip. Scared, both older kids look up at the fire now blazing in Sam’s room.

“It’s okay, Sam,” Dean says reassuringly to his brother as they continue to watch the fire. Having failed in his attempts to save his wife, John runs from the house, ready to save the kids. He runs up behind them, picking them up and carrying on across the lawn.

“I gotcha,” he calls to the kids, still running as the window explodes outwards.

@~~>~~~

Soon, the whole street is packed. Ambulance’s and fire trucks pulls up, calling out comments as they try to fight the fire. Practically the entire street are out of their homes, watching the flames erupt higher as they stand in their pyjamas and dressing gowns. And the police are now here, trying to hold the crowd back.

And in the centre of all this, there are the four from the house, watching as the scene unfolds. John, sat against a police car as he holds his youngest son, the two older kids sat beside him. he watches, no emotion evident on his features, as he wonders what they will do next.

@~~>~~~

And here we are, 22 years later. We’re at Stanford University and a pretty blonde girl steps into the room, dressed up for Halloween in a nurses outfit.

“Sam! Get a move on would ya?” She calls as she adds her earrings to the outfit. “We were supposed to be there like 15 minutes ago. Sam! Ya comin or what?”

And young Sam, now a grown man, pokes his head round the door, watching his girlfriend change.

“Do I have to?” he moans playfully as he steps into the room.

“Yes. It’ll be fun.” She turns and looks him up and down. He is standing in front of her in normal clothes. No Halloween outfit. “And where’s your costume?”

“You know how I feel about Halloween,” Sam scoffs at her in response. And those feelings aren’t good ones.

@~~>~~~

Still, despite his feeling towards this holiday, Sam has allowed himself to be dragged to the Halloween party he is now present at. He sits at a table with Jess and a friend, attempting to have fun. He watches on as Jess raises her glass in a toast.

“So here’s to Sam and his awesome LSAT victory,” she says proudly.

“All right, all right it’s not that big a deal,” Sam says, embarrassed but still glad to have people around who care to acknowledge his achievements.

“He acts all humble but he scored a 174,” Jess announces. The friend mumbles through his shot glass before he puts it down.

“Is that good?” he asks.

“Scary good,” Jess answers with a small laugh.

“See there you go,” their friend announces matter-of-factly. “You are first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want.”

“Actually I got an interview here… Monday,” Sam tells him. “If it goes ok I think I got a shot at a full ride next year.”

“Hey it’s gonna go great,” Jess said reassuringly.

“It better,” Sam said, his feelings towards the outcome of this interview still a little shaky. This was, after all, the rest of his life.

“How does it feel to be the golden boy in your family?” his friends asks.

“Ah, they don’t know,” Sam answers honestly. Outside his circle of friends, there was only one person he had told. One person he had wanted to tell. And that was Emma. Despite everything which had happened in his family, she was still someone he tried his best to keep in contact with. His only contact to his family.

“Don’t know?” his friend said, shocked. “I would be gloating! Why not?”

“Cause we’re not exactly the Brady’s,” Sam answered with a laugh in his voice.

“And I’m not exactly the Huxtables,” he replies, standing up. “More shots?” and he begins to walk away, nbot waiting for an answer.

“No, no,” Sam calls after him in answer.

“No,” Jess calls in time as her own answer before she turns back to her boyfriend.

“Seriously,” she says to him. “I’m proud of you and your gonna knock ‘em dead on Monday and you’re gonna get that full ride. I know it.”

“What would I do without you?” Sam asks her, smiling.

“Crash and burn,” Jess answers jokingly. And she laughs before her mouth is captured in a kiss by Sam.

@~~>~~~

After the party, Sam and Jess retreated back to his house, asleep almost instantly. Sam and Jess slept soundly, Sam woken suddenly only by a crash ion the other room. He lays there, eyes open and listening for a second before he moves. Hearing the floorboards creak, he walked slowly into the other room. Stopping in the doorway, he watched as the shadow of a man crossed across into another room reaching the doorway before the shadow, Sam grabs him as he enters the room.

Pulling out the moves his father had taught him when he was young, Sam fights against the intruder. But whoever this intruder is, he knows the same moves. And soon enough, Sam is pinned to the floor, this guy on top of him. And as a streak of light washes across his face, Sam suddenly recognises him.

“Whoa, easy, tiger,” his older brother laughed out slightly from on top of him.

“Dean?” Sam exclaims, shocked to see his brother. But Dean simply laughs as Sam breathes heavily from the fight.

“You scared the crap out of me,” Sam finished.

“That’s cause you’re out of practice,” Dean answered cockily. Proving his brother wrong, Sam pulls off one finally move, flipping his brother over and pinning himself on top of him. Again, Dean simply laughs his trademark laugh.

“Or not…Get off me,” he said, pushing gently against his little brother. The both get up, Dean brushing himself off.

“Dean, what the hell are you doing here?” Sam asked finally.

“Well I was looking for a beer,” Dean answered in all honesty.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sam repeated.

“Okay, all right, we gotta talk,” Dean said.

“Uh, the phone?”

“If I’d have called, would you have picked up?” But before Sam can answer, the light flicks on and both men turn their heads to find Jess standing in front of them, wearing typical night time clothes.

“Sam?” she questioned, looking at the new guy in their living room.

“Jess, hey,” Sam said nervously. “Dean, this is my girlfriend Jessica.”

“Wait, your brother Dean?” Jess asked, Sam having told her all about his brother.

Smiling cheekily, Dean stepped forward, acknowledging the Smurfs nightshirt Jessica was wearing.

“I love the Smurfs. You know I gotta tell you, you are completely out of my brother’s league.” And here comes the typical Dean charm techniques, Sam thought.

“Just let me put something on,” Jess said, smiling somewhat nervously.

“No, no, no, I wouldn’t dream of it… Seriously,” Dean replied with another cheeky smile.

“So, Dean, how’s Emma?” Sam asked, knowing the answer but merely trying to pull Dean’s attention away from his girlfriend. “You know, your girlfriend?” And why Emma stayed with him, he would never know. Not when Dean acted like her did.

“She’s outside. You wanna ask her yourself?” Dean answered cockily before turning his attention back to Jess.

“Anyway,” he began. “I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business, but, uh, nice meeting you.”

“No. No,” Sam said defensively, walking to Jess and putting an arm round her. “Whatever you wanna say you can say it in front of her.”

“Okay. Um… dad hasn’t been home in a few days,” Dean said, trying to get round what he really wanted to say.

“So he’s working over-time on a “Miller Time” shift; he’ll stumble back in sooner or later.”

“Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days,” Dean corrected. And that got Sam’s attention.

“Jess, excuse us,” he said. “We have to go outside.”

@~~>~~~

So the two brothers walked down the stairs, finally able to discuss what Dean had truly came to say.

“I mean come on,” Sam said. “You can’t just break in, in the middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you.”

“You’re not hearing me Sammy,” Dean said. “Dad’s missing; we need you to help us find him.”

“You remember the poltergeist in Amherst, or the devil’s gates in Clifton? He was missing then too, he’s always missing and he’s always fine.”

“Not for this long. Now you gonna come with us or not?” Dean asked.

“I’m not,” Sam answered simply.

“Why not?” Dean asked, never one to take no for an answer.

“I swore I was done hunting for good.”

“Come on, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t that bad,” Dean said as he carried on down the stairs, Sam following him closely.

“Yeah? When I told dad when I was scared of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45.”

“Well what was he supposed to do?” Dean asked, honestly thinking what Sam had said was the right thing to do in that situation.

“I was 9 years old. He was supposed to say ‘Don’t be afraid of the dark.’”

“Don’t be afraid of the dark?” Dean said, stopping at the door out. “What are you kidding me of course you should be afraid of the dark! You know what’s out there!”

“Yeah I know but still-- the way we grew up after mom was killed, and dad’s obsession to find the thing that killed her, but we still haven’t found the damn thing, so we kill everything we can find.”

“Save a lot of people doing it, too.”

“You think mom would have wanted this for us?” Without answering, Dean stalked outside, Sam again following. Sam followed him to Dean’s car where Emma was, leaning against the hood. Hearing the sound of the brothers voices, she turned to watch them.

“The weapon training and melting the silver into bullets?” Sam said, continuing with his ranting. “Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors.”

“So, what are you gonna do? You just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life Is that it?”

“No. Not normal. Safe,” Sam answered before turning his attention to Emma, a wide smile now on his face.

“Hi Em,” he said in greeting.

“Hey Sammy,” Emma replied as she wrapped her arms round Sam. Dean stared at the two as they hugged, always expecting Sam’s response to Emma to be better than the one he would get.

“So that’s why you ran away?” Dean scoffed, pulling Sam’s attention back to him as he broke away from Emma.

“I was just going to college. It was dad who said if I was gonna go, I should stay gone. And that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yeah well dad’s in real trouble if he’s not dead already, I can feel it. We can’t do this alone,” Dean said, although that was a total lie. And Sam knew that.

“Yes you can,” he answered.

“Yeah. Well, we don’t want to,” Emma said, not giving Dean the chance to say anything stupid. Sam stared at them both for a minute before he sighed.

“What was he hunting?” he asked, giving in.

@~~>~~~

Answering Sam’s question, Dean now had the trunk of his car open, propping up the lid of the extra compartment as he searched past all the guns, knives and other weapons for what he was looking for. Sam and Emma stood beside the car, Emma's arm round Sam and his round her.

“All right, let’s see. Where the hell did I put that thing?” Dean muttered to himself, still searching.

“So when dad left, why didn’t you guys go with him?” Sam asked.

“We were working our own gig,” Dean answered. “This voodoo thing down in New Orleans.”

“Dad let you two go on a hunting trip by yourselves?” Sam said, this being the first he had heard.

“I’m 26, dude,” Dean said, almost offended. Finding what he was looking for, Dean pulled a bunch of papers out of the book he now had in his hands.

“All right, here we go. So dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago this guy….” Showing Sam, he pulled out one of the newspaper clippings and handed it to him

“They found his car but he’d vanished, completely M.I.A.”

“So maybe he was kidnapped,” Sam said, always the one to think of the logical option.

“Yeah well, here’s another one in April,” Emma added as Dean kept handing different articles to Sam to prove her point. “Another one in December ’04, ’03, ’98, ’92. Ten of them over the past 20 years, all men, all same 5-mile stretch of road.”

“It started happening more and more so dad went to go dig around,” Dean finished off. “That was about three weeks ago. I hadn’t heard from him since, which is bad enough.” Rummaging around in the trunk again, Dean pulled out a tape recorder.

“Then I get this voicemail yesterday.” Hitting play, Dean played the copy of his voicemail and their fathers voice came through the static.

“Dean, something is starting to happen, I think it’s serious. I need to try to figure out what’s going on.” More static came through again, drowning out the voice until the last sentence.

“Be very careful Dean, we’re all in danger.” And Dean shut off the recorder.

“You know there’s EVP on that?” Sam stated.

“Not bad, Sammy,” Emma said, smiling up at him. “Kind of like riding a bike isn’t it?” Sam simply glared playfully at her.

“All right. I slowed the message down, and ran it through a Gold Wave took out the hiss, and this is what I got.” He played the recording again, but what came out this time was different. This was a women’s voice whispering one sentence.

“I can never go home.”

“Never go home,” Sam repeated, questioning it himself. Dean threw the recorder back into the trunk and shut it, leaning against it. Emma pulled herself away from Sam and moved to sit beside him.

“You know in almost two years we’ve never bothered you,” Dean stated. “Never asked you for a thing.”

“All right. I’ll go. I’ll help you find him. But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here,” he said as he started to walk back to his apartment.

“What’s first thing Monday?” Dean asked to his retreating brother.

“I have this… I have an interview,” Sam stuttered out.

“What, a job interview? Skip it.” Emma smiled at Dean’s response. She knew what was so important about Monday. Sam had told her in one of their phone calls. Emma had never told Dean though. Dean knew she still kept in touch with Sam, he just didn’t know how often.

“It’s a law-school interview, and it’s my whole future on a plate.”

“Law school?” Dean said, questioning him.

“So we got a deal or not?” Sam said as a finally statement.

@~~>~~~

After getting a yes on his offer of a deal from Dean, one which Emma had a great influence on, Sam had gone back into the apartment to pack, telling Jess he was going to find his father. He just packed the essentials. Clean clothes, clean underwear, sharp implements. While he was packing, Jess walked into his room, knowing but still not totally sure on why Sam was leaving on such short notice.

“Wait you’re taking off? Is this about your dad? Is he all right?”

“Yeah, you know, just a little family drama,” Sam said, not totally lying.

“But your brother said he was on some kind of a hunting trip.”

“Aw yeah, he’s just deer hunting up at the cabin and he’s probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose along with him. We’re just gonna go bring him back.” This time he was lying.

“What about the interview?” Jess asked.

“I’ll make the interview. This is only for a couple of days,” Sam said as he walked out of the room.

@~~>~~~

Back outside, Dean leant against his car, waiting for his little brother. He sighed deeply. His brother was coming back on the hunt with him, but this wasn’t a permanent fixture. He would be gone by Monday. Back to his normal life while Dean and Emma went back on the hunt. It made him wonder if Sam really wanted to come. Did he really care or was he just coming to shut Dean up.

Sitting there in his thoughts, Dean was pulled out as he felt comforting arms wrap around his shoulder and Emma soft breath as she leant against his shoulder.

“He’s coming, isn’t he?” She said comfortingly as if reading his mind. “At least that’s something.” She leant up and kissed him softly on top of his head before continuing.

“He does care and he is helping.”

Dean turned himself to face her, holding her round the waist so that she was now leant against the car and he was stood in front of her.

“What would I do without you, my level-headed girl?” Dean asked her, smiling sweetly her way.

“Crash and burn,” Emma joked with a wide smile. Dean smiled back, wiping hers off her lips as he leant in and kissed her passionately.

@~~>~~~

Sam, now begrudgingly packed and ready to leave, began making his way towards the door of his apartment. He stopped as he heard his girlfriends footsteps behind him, and turned to face her when she spoke.

“Sam, I mean, please, just stop for a second,” she stammered out. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” he answered. And again with the lies. He wasn’t fine. He didn’t want to be leaving. But he did have to find his dad. He wouldn’t say it, and neither would Dean and Emma, but they were all really worried about what might have happened to him this time.

“It’s just… you won’t even talk about your family and now you’re taking off in the middle of the night to spend the weekend with them? And with Monday coming up which is kind of a huge deal.”

“Hey, everything’s gonna be okay,” Sam said, moving forward to reassure her. “I will be back in time-I promise.” He kissed her one final time before walking out of the apartment.

“At least tell me where you’re going,” Jess called after his retreating back.

@~~>~~~

Jericho, California. That was where the three were going. But right now, driving down a road, there was a guy talking on his cell phone.

“Amy I can’t come over tonight,” he said into the phone, waiting for her response. “Because I got work in the morning, that’s why. Okay, I miss it, my dad’s gonna have my ass.”

As he carried on driving, the stereo began to give in, only picking up static. He tried to adjust the station but got nothing. He looked back up to the road and noticed a woman in white standing at the side of the road.

“Hey… uh… Amy, let me call you back.” And he put the phone down without waiting for an answer. He pulled up along side the woman.

“Car trouble or something?” he said. Oh, how cheesy!

“Take me home,” the woman said, turning to look at him.

“Sure, get in.” and the woman obliged. She stepped into the car and closed the door. But for anyone pulling up behind the car, it would seem like the guy is alone. Her figure can not be seen. The passenger side door swings closed, although no one reached out to close it. At least, that’s what it looks like.

But the young guy can most definitely see the woman. And right now, as he watched her, he most definitely seems more interested in her chest area!

“So, where do you live?” he asked with a gulp.

“At the end of Breckenridge Road,” the woman answered breezily.

“You coming from a Halloween party or something?” the boy said, trying to make light conversation. But he got nothing from the woman. “You know um, a girl like you really shouldn’t be alone out here.”

His eyes were drawn downwards as the woman beside him flirtily pulled up her skirt, showing more leg. She held her attention on him as he watched her. Realising what he is doing, the boy pulled his attention to the window, staring out at anything on the other side of the glass.

“I’m with you,” the woman said simply. Trying to pull his attention back to her, the woman reached over and grabbed him by the chin, turning his head to her.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked as if the answer was obvious.

“Uh-huh,” the boy answered nervously.

“Will you come home with me?” she asked.

“Um… hell yeah,” the boy replied eagerly, kicking the car quickly into gear and peeling put towards her house.

@~~>~~~

The boy pulled up a few minutes later at the end of Breckenridge Road. And there in front of him is an old boarded up house.

“Come on, you don’t live here,” the boy said.

“I can never go home,” the woman said, ignoring him.

“What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here. Where do you live?” he turned to face her, but she was gone. He stepped out of the car, looking round for her.

“That was good. Joke’s over, okay? You want me to leave?” he called out, trying to keep his pride intact the best he can. He walked up to the front door of the house, peering round.

“Hello? Hello?” he called into the house. In reply, around half a dozen bats fly from the house, straight at the boy. He screams and runs back to his car, jumping in and quickly knocking it into reverse. Breathing deeply, he turns the car round and begins driving away. But as he drives, his eyes are pulled to his rear-view mirror. And there, he sees the woman in white sitting in the back seat of his car. He screams again, slamming the brakes down quickly. The carts swerves and crashes through a ‘Road Closed’ sign. The boy continues to scream as the car stops on a bridge, shaking almost violently. The screaming ends as the windshield and windows of the car are splattered with the boy’s blood.

@~~>~~~

Next morning and the trio have finally arrived at Jericho. The car is parked outside of a gas station, Sam and Emma inside. Sam is flipping through a box of Dean’s cassettes, his distaste growing with each he looks at.

Dean finally walks out of the gas station and to the car, waving breakfast bars and juice at the two.

“Hey, you want breakfast?” he called to them. In answer, Emma holds her hand out of the back window. Dean throws a bar across to her, which she catches and pulls her arm back in.

“No thanks,” Sam answers. “So how’d you pay for that stuff? You and dad still running credit card scams?”

“Yeah well… hunting ain’t exactly a pro-ball career,” Dean replies in answer. “Besides, all we do is apply, it’s not our fault they send us the cards.”

“Yeah and what names did you write on the application this time?” Sam asks as Dean climbs back into the car.

“Uh…Bert Aframian, his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal.”

“Sounds about right. I swear man; you gotta update your cassette-tape collection.”

“Why?”

“Well for one they are cassette tapes, and two—” He pulls out a tape. “Black Sabbath?” He pulls out another tape. “Motorhead?” A third tape comes out of the box, which Dean grabs a hold of. “Metallica? It’s the greatest hits of mullet rock.”

Dean popped the cassette into the player while Emma leans forward from the backseat, leaning against the back of Sam’s chair.

“You gotta learn the house rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts their cake hole. I learnt that.”

“You know Sammy is a chubby 12 year old,” Sam tells the both of them. “It’s Sam, okay?”

“I’m sorry, we can’t hear you,” Dean replied. “The music’s too loud.” Emma laughed as they pulled out of the gas station, her and Dean tapping their hands to the beat of the music.

@~~>~~~

So they carried on driving. And while they drove, Sam did what both Dean and Emma had already done. Rang around every hospital, morgue and police station he could think of. Emma had repeatedly told him it was useless, that they had already tried, but he wouldn’t listen.

“All right,” Sam said hung up on his mobile. “So there’s no one matching dad at the hospital or morgue, so that’s something, I guess.”

They carried on driving for about another two seconds before they came to their first sign of anything weird or tragic. It was the bridge from last night’s accident, although the trio didn’t know this. All they saw were the police cars and they knew something was up. Spider sense you could say.

“Check it out,” Dean said as he drove closer. He pulled the car to a stop and Emma reached into the front, leaning over Sam and into the glove compartment. She pulled out a box which she opened to reveal a large amount of fake ID’s. Searching through them, she finally pulled three out, chucking one to each of the boys with a wide grin on her face.

“Let’s go,” she said, jumping out of the car. Sam and Dean followed her, Sam a little reluctantly. They walked up to the police officers out on the scene, acting like they belonged there.

“Did you guys find anything?” One officer called over the bridge to two police below who were climbing from the river.

“No, nothing!” Was the reply he received.

“No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints,” the officer with his head inside the car was telling him. “Spotless, it’s almost too clean.”

“So this kid Troy, he’s dating your daughter isn’t he?” the other officer asked.

“Yeah.”

“How’s Amy doing?”

“She’s putting up missing posters downtown.”

“You fella’s had another one just like this last month, didn’t ya?” Dean said, striding confidently up to them with Emma at his side and Sam a couple of paces behind.

“Who are you?” the first officer asked, turning to them. In response, both Dean and Emma flipped open their fake idea’s to reveal Us Marshall badges.

“Federal Marshals,” Dean answered.

“You guys are a little young for Marshals, aren’t you?” the police officer stated.

“Thanks, that’s awfully kind of you,” Emma said, joining in the charade. “You did have another one just like this correct?”

“Yeah, about a mile up the road. There have been others before that,” the officer answered to their questions.

“So this victim, you knew him?” Sam asked. the police officer nodded.

“In a town like this, everybody knows everybody.”

“Any connections between the victims besides that they’re all men?” Dean asked as he began to circle the boys car.

“No, not so far as we can tell.”

“So what’s the theory?” Emma asked as her and Sam followed Dean to the back of the car.

“Honestly? We don’t know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?”

“Well that is exactly the kind of crack police work that I’d expect out of you guys,” Dean said cheekily. At his comment, Sam stomped heavily down on Dean’s foot, telling him to shut up. Hearing Dean grunt slightly caused Emma to have to hold back her giggles.

“Thank you for your time,” Sam said, looking round at the police officers. “Gentlemen.” He starting walking, Dean and Emma following. Once they were out if hearing distance and the police officer had stopped watching them and gone back to their work, Dean walked a little faster, smacking Sam across the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for?” Sam exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head.

“Why do you have to step on my foot?” Dean said.

“Why do you have to talk to police like that?” Sam retaliated.

“Come on,” Dean said, coming to a stop and forcing Sam and Emma to do the same in front of him. “They don’t really know what’s going on. We’re all alone on this. I mean if we’re gonna find dad we’ve gotta get to the bottom of this thing ourselves.”

Stopping Dean before he went any further, Emma cleared her throat and nodded her head towards the back of Dean. Dean and Sam turn their attention in the direction she was nodding to see a sheriff and two important looking investigators stood behind them.

“Can I help you three?” the sheriff asked.

“No sir, we were just leaving,” Dean said, watching as the two investigators past him.

“Agent Mulder, Agent Scully,” he said, acknowledging them. Emma shook her head slightly at him in disbelief as she, Sam and Dean continued back to the car, the sheriff watching them all the time.

@~~>~~~

Going into town to investigate themselves, the first thing Sam, Dean and Emma came across was a young girl, hanging up missing person’s posters outside the town theatre.

“I’ll bet you that’s her,” Dean said, referring to the Amy the police officers had mentioned.

“Yeah,” Sam said in agreement and the three of them walked up to her.

“You must be Amy,” Dean said kindly to the girl.

“Yeah,” she answered, clearly upset.

“Troy told us about you, we’re his aunt and uncles. I’m Dean, this is Sammy,” To which Sam glared at his brother. “And Emma.”

“He never mentioned you to me,” Amy said, a little cautious around them.

“Well that’s Troy, I guess. We’re not around much; we’re up in Modesto.

“So we’re looking for him too,” Sam butt in, pushing his way in front of Dean. “And we’re kind of asking around.” At that moment, a second young girl came up to them, the same posters in her hand.

“Hey, are you okay?” the girl asked Amy, her eyes flicking suspiciously to Sam, Dean and Emma.

“Yeah,” Amy answered, again with little emotion in her voice to persuade her friend, or anyone else, that she was speaking the truth.

“Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions?” Sam asked, trying to earn both girls trust. Amy nodded and they walked off, leaving the missing person’s posters of Troy to hopefully do their work.

@~~>~~~

Going somewhere more comfortably so they could talk, then three of them ended up in a restaurant not far away, picking a booth that was out of the way from everyone else.

“I was on the phone with Troy,” Amy said, telling them about the last time she had spoke to her boyfriend. “He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and he never did.”

“He didn’t say anything strange or out of the ordinary?” Sam asked, trying to make the question sound normal.

“No, nothing I can remember,” Amy answered. During their conversation, Emma’s attention had been drawn to the necklace round Amy neck. It was a pentagram hanging on a thick black thread.

“I like your necklace,” Emma said, nodding towards it. Smiling at the memories it brought, Amy pulled the necklace from her shirt so she could see it more clearly.

“Troy gave it to me,” she said, the memories she had been thinking of coming clear. “Mostly to scare my parents with all that devil stuff.”

“Actually, it means just the opposite,” Emma began. “A pentagram is protection against evil, really powerful.” Realising just what she had made herself sound like, Emma added quickly. “I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing.”

“Okay, thank you ‘Unsolved Mysteries’,” Dean said sarcastically, pushing himself forward on the table. Emma glared at him, leaning back and letting him carry on if he thought he could do any better. “Here’s the deal ladies—the way Troy disappeared—something’s not right. So if you’ve heard anything.…” At this Amy and her friend exchanged a glance that told the trio there was something they weren’t telling.

“What is it?” Dean asked.

“Well, it’s just…with all these guys going missing, people talk,” Amy’s friend said.

“What do they talk about?” Sam, Dean and Emma said in unison.

“It’s kind of this local legend,” the girl began. “This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial like… decades ago. Well supposedly she’s still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up—Well, they disappear forever.”

Hearing the story, Sam, Dean and Emma exchanged a glance. Local legends? Their speciality.

@~~>~~~

Looking for any information on this local legend, the three found themselves at the local library and on the computers. Dean had positioned himself in front of the computer screen and had logged onto the Jericho Herald web page. And he was getting nothing. In the search bar, he typed in ‘Female Murder Hitchhiking,’ which then flashed up with no results found. He then changed it to ‘Female Murder Centennial Highway’, and again the screen flashed with no results found. Seeing that Dean wasn’t getting them anywhere fast, Emma reached out for the mouse to take over

“Let me try,” she said. Not letting her take over, Dean smacked her hand lightly away.

“I got it,” he said. But he didn’t. Sighing annoyingly, Emma pushed Dean’s rolling chair away and took his place in front of the screen, earning a laugh from Sam as Dean rolled off.

“Hey,” he said as he rolled himself back over. “You’re such a control freak.” Emma ignored him and put all her attention on the computer screen.

“So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Dean answered.

“Maybe it’s not murder,” she said as she deleted Dean’s typed phrase and replaced it with ‘Female Suicide Centennial Highway’. This brought up one result, which Emma opened.

“This was 1981,” she told the boys, reading from the article. “Constance Welch, 24 years old; Jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river.”

“Does it say why she did it?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Emma answered.

“What?” Dean urged her on.

“An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Her two little kids are in the bathtub, she leaves them alone for a minute, she comes back, they aren’t breathing. Both die.”

“Hmm,” Dean said as she continued to read on.

“ ‘Our baby’s were gone and Constance just couldn’t bear it,’ said husband, Joseph Welch.” Scrolling down, Emma came to a picture of more police officers at the bridge where they had been earlier today, carrying away Constance in a body bag.

“That bridge look familiar to you?” Dean stated to the two beside him.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up to that familiar bridge, nosing around for anything that might help with their investigation.

“So this is where Constance took the swan dive,” Dean said as the three of them peered over the edge of the bridge.

“So you think dad would have been here?” Sam asked.

“Well he’s chasing the same story and we’re chasing him,” Dean replied, not technically answering because he didn’t know.

“Okay so now what?” Emma asked as the three walked away from the edge.

“Now we keep digging till we find him. It might take a while,” Dean answered, knowing what would come next. And it came.

“Dean, I told you, I’ve gotta get back by….”

“Monday. Right, the interview.” Dean finished.

“Yeah,” Sam said in response.

“Yeah, I forgot,” Dean lied, blocking out his emotional side as usual. “You’re really serious about this aren’t you? You think you’re just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?”

“Maybe. Why not?” Sam said.

“Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you’ve done?”

“No and she’s not ever going to know.”

“Well that’s healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you’re going to have to face up to who you really are.”

Turning his back on Sam, Dean carried on walking down the bridge. Sam followed closely behind. And Emma followed closely behind him, watching all this unfold. She could see that any time soon this was escalate, as it always did between these two.

“Who is that?” Sam asked to Dean’s previous statement.

“One of us,” Dean said, and Emma hoped he was not bringing her into this.

“No, I’m not like you guys. This is not going to be my life.”

“Well you’ve got a responsibility.”

“To dad and his crusade? If it weren’t for pictures I wouldn’t even know what mom looks like. What difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, mom’s gone, and she isn’t coming back.”

And the escalation came as Dean grabbed Sam by the shirt, pushing him back against the rails. Emma quickly followed after them, playing her usual role of mediator.

“Guys!” she called at them as they stopped. “Dean, let him go!” But Dean didn’t. He kept Sam pressed menacingly against the rails.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he said before he let him go. Emma sighed and turned her back on the boys, getting just a little bit sick of their arguments. As she turned, Emma’s eyes found a woman in white on the bridge, standing up on the edge.

“Boys,” Emma said, trying to get their attention. Both turned at the sound of her voice and saw what she was seeing. The woman looked towards them before she let go of the railing she was holding onto, falling into the water below. As an immediate reaction, Sam, Dean and Emma all rushed forward to the place where she had dropped. Looking over, they found no sign of the girl or no movement in the water saying that someone had plummeted below the surface.

“Where’d she go?” Emma asked the boys beside her.

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. Behind them, the three suddenly heard the sound of Dean’s car starting up and turned to follow it.

“What the….” Dean began at seeing his precious car start up without him behind the wheel.

“Who’s driving your car?” Sam asked. As an answer, Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. No one.

As they stood and watched, the car, without a driver, headed down the bridge right for them. Seeing no other option, Sam, Dean and Emma quickly turned on their heels and began to run in the opposite direction.

“Come on guys. Let’s go! Go!” Sam called to them as they continued to run. But no matter how fast they ran, the car was quickly catching up to them. Taking the only route left, the trio turned direction and ran towards the edge, jumping over and plummeting towards the water.

@~~>~~~

As they had jumped over the railing and down into the water, Sam and Emma had managed to grab hold of the railings before they fell further. Dean, on the other hand, hadn’t and was no where to be seen.

Sam and Emma struggled to pull themselves back onto the bridge, Sam reaching up first. One in a safe position, he reached down and help to pull Emma up.

“Thanks,” she said as she pulled herself into a safe position beside him before looking over the edge for Dean.

“Dean! Dean!” she called over the edge. And there he was, crawling out of the water below, covered in mud from head to toe.

“What?” he called up.

“Hey, are you all right?” Emma called down to him.

“I’m super,” he answered, his voice full of sarcasm. Seeing that he was alright, Sam and Emma now had no option but to laugh.

@~~>~~~

A few minutes later, Dean had climbed back onto the bridge, Sam and Emma watching and still laughing. And the first thing he had done was check his car, popping the hood up.

“Car all right?” Emma asked as Dean dropped the hood down and sat on it.

“Yeah whatever she did to it, it seems all right now. That Constance chick, what a bitch!” he called into the night air.

“Well she doesn’t want us digging around, that’s for sure,” Sam said as he and Emma sat either side of Dean.

“So where’s the trail go from here, genius?” he asked, to which Dean simply shrugged.

“You smell like a toilet,” Emma added with a laugh after a minute of sitting that close to him. Glaring at her, Dean reached his arm out to hug her. Emma scooted away from his grip, sliding unintentionally off the edge of the car. She stood up, trying to hide her slip. But Sam had Dean had noticed and were now sat smiling at her cheekily.

@~~>~~~

A short time later and the three were checking into a motel, Dean eager to get a shower, and Sam and Emma eager to get rid of the smell. Dean threw his credit card down onto the desk, smiling widely at the man while Emma did the same from behind the boys.

“One room please,” Dean said, his smile staying in place. The three watched as the guy inspected the credit card, looking up at the after a minute.

“You guys having a reunion or something?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“That other guy, Bert Aframian,” he told them. “He came in and bought out a room for the whole month.”

Dean looked back at Sam, a somewhat smug look on his face. Their dad had been following the same lead.

@~~>~~~

Once they had managed to get out of the man behind the desk exactly what room ‘Bert Aframian’ was staying in, the three stood outside it while Sam picked the lock. Once it was open, Sam walked in while Dean and Emma stayed outside, oblivious to the fact that the door was open. Without saying a word, Sam simply grabbed the both by the collar and pulled them into the room, closing the door behind them. What they saw inside told them that the boys father had definitely been there at some point.

The room was a mess. The bed was unmade and the walls were covered in pictures and newspaper articles and God knows what else. An array of weapons and other sorts of strange objects were lain out on a table. A table which was surrounded by a circle of salt, a spirit deterrent.

“Whoa,” Sam offered up as the three took different directions into the room. Sam made his wait over to the protected table, Emma wandering around the room looking at the articles in the walls and Dean making his way over to the table beside the bed. He switch the lamp on and picked up the half-eaten burger that was underneath, sniffing it. He drew it quickly away from his nose, the smell telling Dean just what he needed to know.

“I don’t think he’s been here for a couple days, at least,” he told the other two, putting the burger down. Sam knelt on the floor, examining the circle round the table.

“Salt, cats-eye shells,” he said, standing straight. “He was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in.” As he stood, he noticed Emma now stood still and inspecting an article on the wall.

“What do you got here?” he asked her.

“Centennial Highway victims,” she answered, motioning towards the pictures. “I don’t get it. I mean different men. Different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There’s always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?”

Sam walked over to the other side of the room, examining other articles and cutting on the wall. He past a number of different mystic and occult articles, but none caught his eyes. But something did.

He stopped, his gaze falling on a cutting named ‘Woman in White’. Turning the light on beside it, the article underneath caught his attention as well. It was the same article they had found on the internet. He laughed slightly to himself.

“Dad figured it out,” he said simply to the other two.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked, turning to see what he had found.

“He found the same article we did. Constance Welch, she’s a woman in white.” Dean turned back round, looking at the pictures which Emma had first stopped on.

“You sly dogs,” he said, referring to the men in the pictures. “All right, so if we’re dealing with a woman in white, dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it.”

“She might have another weakness,” Sam offered up.

“No, dad would want to make sure, he’d dig her up. Does it say where she’s buried?”

“No, not that I can tell. If I were dad though, I’d go ask her husband,” He said, noticing the small picture of Constance’s distraught husband on the day they found her body. “If he’s still alive.”

“All right, why don’t you guys see if you can find an address. I’m gonna get cleaned up,” Dean said, turning to head towards the bathroom.

“Hey Dean… what I said earlier, about mom and dad, I’m sorry.” Not on for these kinds of moments, Dean raised a hand to cut his baby brother off.

“No chick flick moments.”

“All right, jerk,” Sam answered with a smile.

“Bitch,” Dean replied as he walked into the bathroom. Sam and Emma laughed as he left, Emma moving over to lie on the nearest bed.

“Oh how I’ve missed this from you two,” she said, knowing that she really meant it.

Smiling still, Sam moved over to the dresser, something on the mirror catching his eye. It was a photo from when they were young. The three of them, Sam, Dean and Emma, with the boy’s father. Just like a typical family photo, the four of them smiling widely.

“Yeah, me too,” Sam said, smiling wider as he picked up the photo.

@~~>~~~

The three had now managed to settle into the motel room. Emma was still lay across one of the beds, staring up at the ceiling. Sam was sat on the end of her bed, his phone out and checking his voicemails while Dean still had produced himself from the bathroom.

“Hey, it’s me. It’s about 10:20….” Came Jess’ voice over Sam’s voicemail on the phone. Now fully clothed and clean, Dean walked out of the bathroom finally.

“Hey man, I’m starving,” Dean announced. “I’m gonna grab a little something to eat at that diner down the street.”

“Me too,” Emma said, jumping off the bed and grabbing her jacket. “I’ll come with.”

“You want anything?” Dean asked his brother.

“No,” Sam answered.

“Aframian’s buying,” Dean said with a smile as him and Emma left the room. They began their walk over to the car, both pulling on their jackets. Searching round, mainly out of habit, Dean noticed two cops talking to the man who had checked them in. he didn’t know what they were saying, but the check-in guy pointing towards them gave him a clue as to what it was about. Grabbing Emma’s arm and turning their backs on the approaching cops, Dean pulled out his cell phone and dialled Sam’s number.

@~~>~~~

While all this was happening outside, Sam was inside the motel room still listening to Jessica’s message.

“So come home soon, okay? I love you.” And as the message came to an end, Sam’s phone beeped to signal an incoming call. He clicked over to other line, knowing it would be his brother or Emma.

“What?” he said into the phone.

“Dude, five-o take off,” Dean’s voice spoke over the line, and Sam knew exactly what he meant

“What about you guys?” he asked, standing off the bed.

“Uh, they kind of spotted us. Go find dad.” And with that, he hung up.

@~~>~~~

Dean clicked the phone down just in time as he and Emma turned to face the two police officers that were stood in front of them.

“Problem officers,” Dean asked innocently.

“Where’s your partner?” one of the officers asked, getting straight to the point.

“Partner? What… what partner?” Dean asked, still with the innocent act and hoping Sam had took his advice as the officer signalled for his partner to check the motel room.

@~~>~~~

Inside the motel room, Sam watched the scene unfold. He watched the signal the officer gave and saw the other head towards his motel room. Taking Dean’s advice, Sam quickly made his escape out the back.

@~~>~~~

Back outside the motel and the officer was still interrogating Dean and Emma.

“So. Fake US Marshal, fake credit cards,” The officer said. “You guys got anything that’s real?”

“My boobs,” both said in unison. Wrong move. Seconds later and they found themselves handcuffed and shoved against the police car.

“You two have the right to remain silent,” the officer began, reading them their rights as they had heard so many times.

@~~>~~~

After the little encounter outside of the motel, Dean and Emma now found themselves sat in an interrogation room in the police station.

“So you want to give us your real names?” an officer asked as he entered the room.

“We told you, it’s Nugent,” Dean answered. “Ted and Beth Nugent.”

“I’m not sure you realize just how much trouble you’re in here.”

“We talking like misdemeanour kind of trouble? Or uh… ‘squeal like a pig’ kind of trouble?” Dean said, both him and Emma having been in this situation time and time before.

“You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall. Along with a whole lot of satanic mumbo jumbo. You are officially suspects.”

“That makes sense,” Emma said. “Cause when the first one went missing in ’82, we were three.”

“I know you got partners; one of them’s an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me… Dean,” the officer said, reaching into the box beside him. “Is this his?”

And he slammed their dads journal down on the table. John Winchester’s entire demon hunting life. he never left town without it. Yet here it was, in front of them.

“I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this, what little I could make out. I mean, it’s nine kinds of crazy. But I found this, too,” the officer, who had been flipping through the pages as he spoke, finally landed on a page, turning the book to Dean and Emma. On the page, written in a circle, were two simple things. ‘Dean 35-111’. Co-ordinates.

“Now, you’re staying right here till one of you tells me exactly what the hell that means,” the police officer said. Neither Dean nor Emma answered him. They just sat there, continuing to stare at the journal.

@~~>~~~

While Dean and Emma were being interrogated by the police, Sam had found the address for Constance’s husband and had made his way there. He knocked on the door and waited for it to be opened. When it was, an older version of Constance’s husband, Joseph Welch, was stood there.

“Hi uh, are you Joseph Welch?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” he answered.

@~~>~~~

A few minutes later and Sam had got Joseph Welch talking, walking through his yard. Sam was showing him the picture he had found on the dresser, getting him to identify his father.

“Yeah, he was older, but that’s him,” Joseph said, handing the photo back. “He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter.”

“That’s right. We’re working on a story together,” Sam said, glad his father had used the reporter disguise.

“Well I don’t know what the hell kind of story you’re working on. The questions he asked me.”

“About your late wife Constance?”

“He asked me where she was buried.”

“And where is that again?” Sam asked, getting a hard stare from Joseph

“What, I got to go through these twice?”

“It’s fact checking,” Sam said quickly, trying to get the information. “If you don’t mind.”

“In a plot behind my old place over on Breckenridge.”

“Why did you move?”

“I’m not gonna live in the house where my children died.”

“Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?”

“No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known.”

“So you had a happy marriage?” Sam asked. and for a second, Joseph Welch hesitated.

“Definitely,” he said finally.

“Well that should do it. Thanks for your time,” Sam said as he began to walk back to the car. But before he climbed in and drove away, Sam turned around, another option in mind.

“Mr. Welch, you ever hear of a woman in white?” Sam asked to the mans retreating back.

“A what?” Joseph Welch asked as he turned around.

“A woman in white, or sometimes a weeping woman,” Sam began. “It’s a ghost story. Well it’s more of a phenomenon really. Um, they’re spirits. They’ve been sited for hundreds of years. Dozens of places; in Hawaii and Mexico. Lately in Arizona and Indiana. All these are different women, you understand. But all share the same story.”

“Boy I don’t care much for nonsense.,” Joseph said after listening to his story.

“You see, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them. And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children. Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed. Walking back roads, waterways, and if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him, and that man is never seen again.”

“You think… you think that has something to do with Constance? You smartass,” Joseph said, advancing on Sam.

“You tell me.”

“I mean maybe… maybe I made some mistakes, but no matter what I did, Constance would never would have killed her own children. Now you get the hell out of here, and you don’t come back.” And Joseph Welch turned and went back to his house. And Sam had no option but to leave.

@~~>~~~

Back at the police station, Dean and Emma were still getting an interrogation of their own. The officer had repeatedly asked both of them about the number written on the page of the journal.

“I don’t know how many times I gotta tell you. It’s my high-school locker combo,” Dean had said in answer.

“Are we gonna do this all night long?” the officer asked, pacing round them. Just as Dean was about to answer, with a sarcastic comment knowing him, another police officer poked his head into the office.

“We just got a 911,” he informed the other officer. “Shots fired over at Whiteford Road.”

“Do you guys have to go to the bathroom?” the officer asked to Dean and Emma.

“No,” both replied in unison.

“Good.” And with that he had handcuffed Dean and Emma together, weaving the cuffs into the table to keep them locked down. He walked out and both captives sighed heavily. And that was when Dean noticed the paper clip sticking from his father’s journal. Perfect. He pulled it out and began picking the lock on the handcuffs connecting him and Emma to the table

“Why, whenever I’m with you, do we always end up in jail?” Emma asked once the officer was well out of earshot.

“Not always,” Dean replied, his attention more on the handcuffs. “Anyway, that time in Dallas was a mistake.”

“Yeah, but we still ended up in jail,” Emma snipped.

“Oh, quit whining. You know you have fun with me,” Dean said, to which Emma laughed softly. A few minutes later, Dean managed to remove them from the table and they escaped from the station, the officer to busy with the report from Whiteford Road. So they made their way out through the fire escape, the journal in hand.

@~~>~~~

Having left Joseph’s Welch’s quite some time ago with his mind clear on what they were up against, Sam drove down the lane connecting to Breckenridge Road when he mobile rang. He answered it and heard Emma’s voice on the other end before he could say hello.

“Fake 911 phone call Sammy? I don’t know, that’s pretty illegal,” her voice echoed from the phone.

“You’re welcome,” Sam answered.

“Listen, we gotta talk.”

“Tell me about it. So the husband was unfaithful, we are dealing with a woman in white. She’s buried behind her old house. So that should have been dad’s next stop.”

“Sammy would you shut up for a second,” Emma said, trying to cut him off. But Sam kept on talking.

“I just can’t figure out why he hasn’t destroyed the corpse yet.”

“Well that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Emma said, finally shutting him up. “He’s gone. Your dad left Jericho.”

“What? How do you know?”

“We’ve got his journal.”

“He doesn’t go anywhere without that.”

“Yeah, well he did this time,” Emma said in answer.

“What’s it say?” Sam asked.

“Same old ex-marine crap when he wants to let us know where he’s going.”

“Coordinates. Where to?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Emma answered.

“I don’t understand, I mean what could be so important that dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Emma, what the hell is going on?” Not giving Emma the chance to answer, Sam dropped his cell phone as he called out. “Whoa!”

In front of him, in the middle of the road, was a young woman. Sam slammed the breaks on in his car to avoid her.

“Sam? Sam!” Emma continued to call into the phone, concern for Sam evident in her voice.

“What happened?” Dean asked, his voice also leaking with worry.

“I don’t know, but it didn’t sound good.” And Emma quickly slammed down the phone, knowing Sam’s destination and heading there as fast as they could.

@~~>~~~

Sam sat in the front seat of his car, breathing heavily. The woman he had almost hit had disappeared… and reappeared in the backseat of the car.

“Take me home,” Constance’s voice echoed eerily from the backseat. At hearing the voice, Sam jerked his head to look into the backseat through the rearview mirror.

“Take me home,” Constance repeated when Sam didn’t answer.

“No,” Sam replied in answer this time. But Constance wasn’t one to take no for an answer. Suddenly, the car door slammed locked and no matter how hard Sam tried to open them, they didn’t budge.

While he had been trying to unlock the door, Constance had decided she would drive herself home. Without any pressure on the pedals, the car shifted into gear and began to drive off. Sam tried to control the steering wheel, but when nothing he did moved the car the way he wanted he gave up, going back to trying to unlock the doors.

The car slowly pulled to a stop at the end of Breckenridge Road, keeping the doors locked solid.

“Don’t do this,” Sam said when he realized where they were.

“I can never go home,” Constance droned out from the backseat, her eyes fixated on the house.

“You’re scared to go home,” Sam said, suddenly realizing that maybe she did have a weakness. He turned to speak face to face, but she was no longer in the backseat. And as Sam shifted his gaze back to the front of the car, he noticed her sitting next to him, in the passenger. Before Sam can make a move or say a word, she jumped across the seat and pushed him back, her on top of him, holding herself against him.

“Hold me. I’m so cold,” Constance said, pushing herself closer to Sam.

“You can’t kill me. I’m not unfaithful. I’ve never been,” Sam said, struggling underneath her.

“You will be,” Constance whispered into his ear before pulling herself up on top of him. “Just hold me.”

And she kissed him. Taking the opportunity while she was distracted, Sam reached for the car keys, still dangling from the ignition. As she suddenly realized what he was doing, Constance pulled up. And her image changed drastically. Sam no longer saw the beautiful woman she had been in life, but the true image of a woman dead for years. The image flashed quickly before she disappeared.

Sam leant up slightly on his arms, cautious in case she came back. And she did. Pain suddenly erupted through Sam’s body, starting at his chest. He desperately pulled at the zipper on his jacket, pulling it open to reveal five neatly placed holes burning into his chest. Holes made by Constance’s fingers as she appeared on top of him once more, her image again of more of a monster than a beautiful woman.

Finally, gunshots stream through the window, causing Constance to turn and disappear. Sam turned to see Dean and Emma, both with their guns rose. And when she appeared again, they were ready, shooting at her and distracted her long enough to give Sam the chance to sit up and start the car up.

“I’m taking you home,” Sam announced as he shifted the car into gear. And he speed the car forward, crashing through the wall of the house.

“Sam!” Emma called after him as her and Dean ran into the house after the car.

“Sam! You okay?” Emma asked as they moved up to the car.

“I think,” Sam answered.

“Can you move?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. Help me,” Sam said. Dean and Emma reached into the car, helping to pull Sam out. While they pulled him out, Constance picked up a picture of her and her children, staring down at it sorrowfully. Regaining her sense, she threw the picture to the ground and turned on Sam, Dean and Emma who were now stood beside the car. She stepped aside from the dresser she had been in front of, sending it flying across the room and pinning Sam, Dean and Emma against the car. They struggled to push it away, but to no avail. They were stuck there.

Constance began moving towards them menacingly, but she and the trio were distracted as the lights flicker on and water began leaking down the stairs. Standing at the top of the stairs were two children. Constance’s children, their faces in shadow. They stood, looking down on their mother, and joined hands.

“You’ve come home to us mommy,” the children’s voices echoed spookily round the house. As the three watched, Constance’s children suddenly appear behind her, grabbing hold of her. Constance screamed as her children grip to her and as light flashed round them, the mother and children were drew downwards, leaving behind only a puddle as the lights stopped.

With Constance gone, Sam, Dean and Emma were now able to push the dresser away from them and walk over top the small puddle.

“So this is where she drowned her kids,” Dean said, staring down at the puddle.

“That’s why she could never go home,” Sam told them. “She was too scared to face them.”

“You found her weak spot. Nice work Sammy,” Emma said, patting Sam chest as she walked past him. Sam laughed through the pain as Emma hit where Constance had dug into him.

“I wish I could say the same for you guys,” he said, turning to them. “What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freaks?”

“Hey, saved your ass,” Dean said, now beside his car. “I’ll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car, I’ll kill you.” Sam and Emma watched on as Dean inspected his precious car for any scratches.

@~~>~~~

With the Woman in White beaten, Sam, Dean and Emma continued the search for the boys father. And the place to start was the co-ordinates he gave them. Emma was sat in the backseat, a map on her lap and flashlight in hand, looking for co-ordinate 35-111.

“Okay here’s where he went,” Emma said, locating the place. “It’s called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.”

“Sounds charming. How far?” Dean asked.

“About 600 miles.”

“If we shag ass we can make it by morning,” Dean said, more to Sam than Emma.

“Dean, um….” Sam began.

“You’re not going,” Dean finished for him.

“The interview’s in 10 hours, I gotta be there,” Sam said. Dean just nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I’ll take you home.” And he continued to drive, eyes front. It clear to anyone, specially Emma right now, the Dean really didn’t want his brother to go.

@~~>~~~

A few minutes later, as they drove in silence like they had done since Sam had announced he was going home, they pulled up to Sam’s apartment. Without a word, Sam grabbed his bag and got out the car, Emma climbing into the front seat once he was out.

“You’ll call me if you find him?” he said was Emma was position comfortably in the front. Dean merely nodded.

“Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?” Sam suggested.

“Yeah, all right,” Emma said. Sam leaned into the car window, hugging his best friend since childhood.

“Bye Sam,” she said as she hugged him back.

“Bye,” he whispered, pulling away and walking back to his apartment.

“Sam,” Dean said, finally speaking up. Sam stopped and turned back to face the car.

“You know we made a hell of a team back there,” he said with a small laugh.

“Yeah,” Sam said simply. And he watched as the pair drove away, Emma waving sadly. He watched as they left him to his old, ordinary life.

@~~>~~~

Sam walked into his apartment, glad to be back to the norm.

“Jess! You home?” he called as he walked through the kitchen. On the counter was a plate of cookies, a note propped in front of them. ‘Missed you! Love you!’ Smiling, Sam picked up a cookie, eating it as he walked into the bedroom. Hearing the shower running, Sam guessed that was where Jess was. He threw his bag on the floor and sat on the bed, closing his eyes and falling backwards. As he lay relaxing, a red drop dripped onto his forehead, making him squeeze his eyes shut tighter. When he felt a couple more drip onto his forehead he opened his eyes, and gasped.

Jess was on the ceiling, just as their father had told them their mother had been the night she had died. And the red drops were blood, dripping from a gash in her stomach.

“No!” he screamed, sitting up. And as he did, Jess burst into flames, the fire spreading across the ceiling.

Sensing something had been wrong, Dean kicked his way into the apartment, Emma close behind him.

“Sam!” Dean called into the apartment. And they heard him, still screaming from his bedroom, where the fire was coming from.

“Jess!” Dean and Emma followed his voice, finding him still sat on the bed.

“Sam!” Emma screamed, wanting him to move. But he didn’t

“No! No!” he continued to scream, his eyes never leaving the ceiling. Taking it upon themselves to get him out, Dean and Emma grabbed Sam off the bed, running him out of the apartment.

“We gotta get out of here,” Dean said as Sam continued his screaming.

“Jess! No!” Blocking them from going back in and pushing them further out the door, the whole room erupted in flames, tendrils of fire licking towards them and pushing them away.

@~~>~~~

Outside the apartment and the fire department have arrived, extinguishing the blaze. Dean watched as part of the crowd, seeing his little brothers normal life die out. He turned and walked away to his car, back to Sam and Emma. Emma was hugging Sam comfortingly, her head leaning against his shoulder. Sam, on the other hand, had turned into a hunter. He loaded a rifle aggressively, looking up to his brother as he stood beside them.

“We got work to do,” he said as he threw the rifle into the trunk, causing Emma to look up. Look up into Sam’s eyes and see the hurt and desperation. Sam closed the trunk fiercely, letting the two know he was ready for whatever might come there way next. And that he would find this demon. Do whatever it took. Because this thing had now taken his mother and his love from him, and he was gonna rest until he had taken everything from it.


	2. Wendigo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean, and Emma follow the coordinates left in the boy’s father’s journal and land in the middle of the woods where they investigate the disappearance of several campers. The three soon learn they are dealing with a Wendigo, a creature made famous in Native America legends. A Wendigo is a former human whose cannibalism has transformed him into a creature with superhuman strength and speed that feasts on human flesh.

Blackwater Ridge, Lost Creek, Colorado. The perfect place for three friends to enjoy a camping trip. Or maybe not. Two tents are put up in the area, and something is watching the occupants, growling softly.

Inside one of the tents are two of the boys and the sound of fighting can be heard coming from their joined hand held video games.

“Dude you’re cheating,” one of the friends, Brad, said.

“No you just suck,” was the others, Gary, reply. Outside of the tents, the growling begins getting louder, but is still unheard by the friends.

Inside the second tent is Tommy, the third mate. While his friends are playing video games in the other tent, he is busy recording a message on his cell phone.

“Hey Hailey,” he begins the message. “Day six, we’re still out near Blackwater Ridge, we’re fine, keeping safe, so don’t worry, talk to you tomorrow.”

Back in the other tent, Brad, getting tired of playing and losing the video game, closes it up and tosses it aside, standing to leave the tent.

“Hey, where ya goin? My moment of victory,” Gary said.

“Nature calls,” he replies. He steps out of the tent, zipping it closed behind him. He moves further into the tress and as he looks around, he could swear he saw a something move inside them.

From inside the tents, the sound of growling now becomes clear to the others ears as Brad screams and the growl grows louder.

“Brad?” Gary called from inside the tent.

“Gary, what’s goin on?” Tommy called to him. Moving to investigate, Gary zipped open the tent and stuck his head out. And whatever it was pulled him from the tent, growling again.

Hearing the second scream, Tommy turns off his lantern, hoping to hide from whatever is out there. But that didn’t stop the thing. It moves quickly round the tent, the shadows Tommy sees moving too fast for him to know what the thing is. For a second, the things stops, going quiet. But it had not left. Going after the third and final victim, it slashed at Tommy’s tent, his scream heard throughout the woods.

@~~>~~~

Now the story moves to Palo Alto, California. A cemetery. Sam wanders through the graveyard, flowers in hand, heading towards one grave in particular. Jessica’s.

“I…um….” Sam laughs to himself slightly, hearing himself caught for words.

“You always said roses were….” He continues. “Were lame so I brought you uh….” He stopped, his eyes caught by the small picture of Jess on the gravestone. He sighed deeply, choking back his tears.

“Jess… oh God… I should have protected you. I should have told you the truth.”

Saying his piece, Sam moves to set the flowers down on the grave. As his hand reaches out, an arm reaches up from out of the grave, grabbing a tight hold on Sam’s wrist.

And Sam jerks awake, sat in the front seat of his brothers car with Emma in the back. Emma leant forward against Sam’s chair.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah I’m fine,” Sam replied. Emma nods, knowing all too well that he really isn’t.

“Another nightmare?” In answer, Sam simply clears his throat.

“You wanna drive for a while?” Dean said, causing Sam to laugh.

“In your whole life you never once asked me that.”

“Just thought you might want to, never mind,” Dean said, going back to driving.

“Look guys, you’re worried about me, I get it and thank you but I’m perfectly okay.”

“Mm hmm,” Emma said, still not believing him.

“All right… where are we?” Sam asked, bringing about the topic of business.

“We are just outside of Grand Junction,” Dean answered.

“You know what? Maybe we shouldn’t have left Stanford so soon,” Sam said, looking over the map again.

“Sam we dug around there for a week, we came up with nothing,” Dean said. “If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica….”

“We gotta find dad first,” Sam finished for him.

“Dad disappearing, and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it’s no coincidence. Dad will have answers; he’ll know what to do.”

“It’s weird man. These coordinates he left us, this Blackwater Ridge.”

“What about it?” Emma asked.

“There’s nothing there, it’s just woods,” Sam said, producing the map again to prove his point. “Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?”

Dean just shrugs and continues driving. The best way to find out is to investigate.

@~~>~~~

Seeking to investigate, the trio arrive at the Lost Creek Visitors Centre.

“So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote,” Emma began to the other two, to which only Sam is listening while Dean is transfixed by the pictures on the walls. “It’s cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place.”

“Dude check out the size of this freakin bear,” Dean said, motioning to the picture in front of him. Sam and Emma join him by the picture.

“And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area,” Emma finishes. “It’s no nature hike that’s for sure.”

“You guys aren’t planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?” A voice said from behind them. The three turn to what must be the park ranger staring at them.

“Oh no sir,” Sam said. “We’re environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper.”

“Recycle, man,” Dean pitched in, must to Sam and Emma’s dislike.

“Bull,” the ranger said, and all three suddenly look worried. “You’re friends with that Hailey girl right?”

“Yes, yes we are,” Dean said, taking this opportunity to get some information out of him. “Ranger….” He looks at his name tag. “Wilkinson.”

“Well I will tell you exactly what we told her,” Ranger Wilkinson began. “Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn’t be back from Blackwater till the 24th, so it’s not exactly a missing persons now is it?” Dean shook his head in answer.

“You tell that girl to quit worrying, I’m sure her brothers just fine.”

“We will” Dean said as the ranger began to walk away. “Well that Hailey girl’s quit a pistol, huh?”

“That is putting it mildly,” Ranger Wilkinson said, turning back to them.

“Actually you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit,” Dean suggested. “You know so she could see her brothers return date.”

@~~>~~~

Having got a copy of the permit from Ranger Wilkinson, Sam, Dean and Emma walked out of the building, Dean laughing smugly.

“What are you cruising for a hook-up or something?” Sam said, a little annoyed at something.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked.

“The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge so what are we waiting for, let’s just go find dad. I mean why even talk to this girl?”

“I dunno maybe we should know what we’re walking into before we actually walk into it,” Dean answered. He and Emma stared at Sam, not fully understanding what they were hearing come from him.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Well since when are you all shoot first ask questions later anyway?” Emma said.

“Since now,” Sam answered, getting into the car.

“Oh, Really?” Dean said as he and Emma followed him into the car.

@~~>~~~

With the permit and Sam’s disapproval, the three went to Hailey’s house. Dean knocked, and a girl who had to be Hailey opened the door.

“You must be Hailey Collins,” Dean said in greeting. “I’m Dean, this is Sam and Emma. We’re rangers with the park service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over, we wanted to ask you some questions about your brother Tommy.”

“Let me see some ID,” Hailey said. Dean held up his fake ID, smiling widely.

“Here ya go.” Still not opening the screen door until she was sure, Hailey looked over the ID.

“Come on in,” Hailey said, happy with the ID and opening the screen door.

“Thanks,” Dean said as he, Sam and Emma made to step into the house. From over his shoulder, Hailey noticed Dean’s car.

“That yours?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Dean answered.

“Nice car,” she replied before heading into the house, Sam, Dean and Emma following.

@~~>~~~

Inside the house, Sam, Dean and Emma stood around nervously, bombarding Hailey with questions while she brought food bowls from the kitchen to her brother, Ben, who was sat at the dining room table.

“So if Tommy’s not due back for a while, how do you know something’s wrong?” Emma asked.

“He checks in every day by cell,” Hailey answered. “He e-mails photos, stupid little videos… but we haven’t heard anything in over three days now.”

“Well maybe he can’t get cell reception,” Sam suggested.

“He’s got a satellite phone too,” was Hailey’s answer to that.

“Could it be he’s just having fun and forgot to check in,” Dean said.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Ben said suddenly, a little angry.

“Our parents are gone; it’s just my two brothers and me,” Hailey told the three. “We all keep pretty close tabs on each other.”

“Can I see the pictures he sent you?” Emma asked.

“Yeah,” Hailey said. She got out her lap top and opened up the pictures and video’s Tommy had sent them while Sam, Dean and Emma looked over her shoulder.

“That’s Tommy,” she said, motioning to a still from the last recording she sent them. She hits the play button and the recording springs to life.

“Hey Hailey, day six,” Tommy’s voice said on the video. “We’re still out near Blackwater Ridge, we’re fine, keeping safe, so don’t worry, talk to you tomorrow.”

Watching the video, Emma frowned slightly at something she had seen in the background. Something she didn’t think was meant to be there.

“Well, we’ll find your brother,” Dean said once the video had stopped. “We’re headin out to Blackwater ridge first thing.”

“Then maybe I’ll see you there,” Hailey said as she walked across the room. Sam, Dean and Emma glanced at each other before looking up at Hailey, giving her a look that said they didn’t think that was a good idea.

“Look. I can’t sit around here anymore, so I hired a guide ’ Hailey told them. “I’m heading out in the morning and I’m gonna find Tommy myself.”

“I think I know how ya feel,” Dean said.

“Hey, you mind forwarding these to me?” Emma asked.

“Sure,” Hailey answered, if it meant it would help find her brother.

@~~>~~~

As per usual, the trio had found the local bar and had gone there to go over their findings. Emma sat between the two brothers, pulling newspaper articles out to show what they had found so far.

“So, Blackwater Ridge doesn’t get a lot of traffic,” Emma began. “Local campers mostly. But still, this past April two hikers went missing out there, they were never found.”

“Any before that?” Dean asked.

“Yeah In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959 and again before that in 1936. Every 23 years, just like clockwork.”

While she had been talking, Emma had pulled out her laptop, pulling up Tommy’s video.

“Okay watch this. Here’s a clincher. I downloaded that guy, Tommy’s, video to the laptop. Check this out.”

She played the video slowly, frame by frame to show them whet she had noticed back at Hailey’s. A shadow of something in the back of the tent, moving extremely fast.

“Do it again,” Dean said. Emma did, playing the video frame by frame again.

“That’s three frames,” she said. “That’s a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move.”

Hearing this and seeing the video, Dean reached behind Emma’s back and hit Sam on the arm, leaving his arm slung across the seat and round Emma.

“Told ya something weird was goin on,” he said.

“Yeah,” Sam said, rubbing his arm.

“I got one more thing,” Emma said, “In ‘59 one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive.”

“Is there a name?” Dean asked. In answer, Emma smiled.

@~~>~~~

The survivor was a Mr Shaw, and Emma had the address. The three went there, asking questions about his supposed grizzly attack.

“Look ranger, I don’t know why you’re askin me about this,” Mr Shaw said as he let the three in. “It’s public record; I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a….”

“Grizzly?” Sam finished. “That’s what attacked them?” Mr Shaw paused slightly before nodding his answer, as if thinking whether that was true or not.

“The other people that went missing that year… those bear attacks too?” Dean said. “What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing? If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Mr Shaw said, sitting ion a chair facing them. “Anyways, I don’t see what difference it would make. You wouldn’t believe me, nobody ever did.”

“Mr. Shaw, what did you see?” Emma asked, sitting on the table in front of his chair.

“Nothing. It moved too fast to see, it hid too well. I heard it though, a roar, like… no man or animal I ever heard.”

“It came at night?” Sam asked. Mr Shaw nodded. “Got inside your tent?”

“It got inside our cabin,” Mr Shaw answered. “I was sleepin in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn’t smash a window or break the door, it unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that?”

Sam, Dean and Emma looked at each other. They didn’t know of any bears that could do that, but there were a few other creatures that could.

“I didn’t even wake up till I heard my parents screamin,” Mr Shaw finished.

“It killed them?” Emma asked.

“Dragged them off into the night. Why it left me alive… been askin myself that ever since. Did leave me this though.”

Mr Shaw opened the collar of his shirt and showed the them three huge scars running across his neck. They were claw marks, but not from a grizzly, no matter what size it may have been.

“There’s something evil in those woods,” Mr Shaw finished. “It was some sort of a demon.”

@~~>~~~

A couple of minutes later, Sam, Dean and Emma walked out of Mr Shaw’s house with their new information.

“Spirits and demons don’t have to unlock doors. If they want inside they just go through the walls,” Dean said.

“So it’s probably something else, something corporeal,” Emma offered up.

“Corporeal? Excuse me professor,” Dean quipped.

“Shut up,” Emma said, smacking his arm lightly.

“So what do you think?” Sam asked.

“The claws, the speed that it moves, could be a skin walker, maybe a black dog,” Dean suggested. “Whatever we’re talking about, we’re talking about a creature and it’s corporeal. Which means we can kill it,” he finished, leaving the apartment.

@~~>~~~

Dean stood outside beside his car, loading up with whatever he thought they might need for this hunt, Emma beside him.

“We cannot let that Hailey girl go out there,” Sam said as he stopped beside them.

“Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell her?” Dean said. “That she can’t go into the woods because of a big scary monster?”

“Yeah,” Sam said simply.

“Her brother’s missing Sam,” Emma said. “She’s not just gonna sit this out. Now we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator-friend.”

“Finding dad’s not enough?” Sam said as Dean and Emma stood away from the car, leaving Sam to slam the trunk shut. “Now we gotta babysit too?” Hearing the edge of a true hunter in his voice, something Sam had never cared to be, Dean and Emma stared at him.

“What?” Sam asked as he watched them both staring. They just shrugged, looking away.

“Nothin,” they both answered, Dean chucking the duffel bag roughly towards Sam as he and Emma turned and walked away.

@~~>~~~

The next morning, Hailey did what she promised and was out by the woods with her brother and their guide, Roy.

“I’ll tell you again,” Roy said. “I don’t think Ben should come.”

“Roy,” Hailey began, but was cut off.

“Look you’re paying me good money to keep everybody safe, I think Ben’s safest at home.” Roy was now cut off as his attention was drawn elsewhere as Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up in the Impala

“You guys got room for three more?” Dean said as the three stepped out of the car.

“Wait, you want to come with us?” Hailey asked Dean.

“Who are these guys?” Roy asked her.

“Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for search and rescue,” Hailey answered.

“You’re rangers?” Roy asked the three who had just arrived.

“That’s right,” Dean answered.

“And you’re hiking out in biker boots and jeans?” Hailey said, looking down at what Dean was wearing. Dean followed her gaze then looked back up at her with a smile on his face.

“Well sweetheart, I don’t do shorts,” he said as he walked past them.

“What, you think this is funny?” Roy said as Sam and Emma strode past him and Dean stopped at his side. “It’s dangerous backcountry out there, her brother might be hurt.”

“Believe me, I know how dangerous this could get,” Dean stated. “We just wanna help her find her brother, that’s all.”

@~~>~~~

And Hailey’s brother was in need of help. Deep inside a cave system in Blackwater Ridge, Tommy and his friend Gary were hanging from the ceiling by their hands. Hearing a noise, Gary looked down the tunnel to see the shadow of a creature approaching him. As the creature gets closer and moves into Tommy’s eye line, Tommy shut his eyes as tight as he could, the sounds of his friends screams as he was ripped apart too much for him to handle.

@~~>~~~

Back at the outside of Blackwater Ridge, the group of six continued their trek through the woods, Dean and Roy in the lead.

“Roy, you said you did a little hunting,” Dean asked oh so casually.

“Yeah, more than a little,” Roy answered.

“Uh huh… What kind of furry critters do you hunt?”

“Mostly buck sometimes bear.”

“Tell me, uh… Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?” Dean said, taking a step forward. Before his foot hit the ground, Roy grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

“Whatcha doin Roy?” Dean said, already not liking this guy. Letting go of Dean, Roy picked up a stick and jammed it in the ground. As he did, a bear trap enclosed around it, right where Dean’s foot would have been.

“You should watch where you’re stepping… ranger,” Roy said as he moved away, taking the lead.

“It’s a bear trap,” Dean said jokily to the others, gaining himself a hard shove in the back from Emma as they carried on walking.

They carried on in the same formation. Roy in front, then Dean and Emma, then Hailey and Ben, and Sam at the rear. Having been watching Dean’s every move, Hailey now picked up her pace, walking beside him.

“You didn’t pack any provisions,” she said as she stepped up to him. “You guys are carrying a duffel bag. You’re not rangers so who the hell are you?” She pulled Dean’s arm back, bringing him to a stop. Before answering, he glanced over at Sam, who nodded as he walked away with Ben. Emma moved to follow them but Dean stopped her, grabbing hold of her arm.

“Sam and I are brothers, and we’re looking for our father,” Dean said truthfully. “He might be here, we don’t know. I just figured that you and me, we’re in the same boat.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that from the start?” Hailey asked.

“I’m telling you now. Besides it’s probably the most honest I’ve ever been with a woman. Ever.”

“Trust me, he’s not lying about that,” Emma added in at his comment. Dean turned to Emma, looking at her and wondering why she had just said that.

“So we okay?” Dean said, turning back to Hailey.

“Yeah, okay,” Hailey said with a smile.

“And what do you mean I didn’t pack provisions?” Dean finished, pulling out a large bag of peanut M&M’s as he and Emma walked away.

“What was that supposed to mean back there?” Dean asked Emma once they were on their own.

“What?” Emma replied.

“The whole, ‘Trust me, he’s not lying about that,’ statement?”

“It was a truthful statement. You’re never honest with women.”

“I’m honest with you.”

“Sure you are,” Emma said, to which Dean took hold of her arm and stopped them both.

“Ok, so maybe it took me a while before I was. And yeah, there probably are some things I’d never tell….” Dean looked up at Emma properly and found her staring at him, eyebrow raised.

“I should probably shut up now, right?” he added.

“Yeah,” Emma said, walking away with Dean following her.

@~~>~~~

The group continued to hike further into the woods before Roy stopped, the rest stopping behind him.

“This is it… Blackwater Ridge,” he announced to them.

“What coordinates do we have?” Sam asked. Roy pulled out his GPS, clicking on a few buttons before he came up with the answer.

“35-111.” Sam, Dean and Emma pulled a bit away from the group, talking amongst themselves.

“You hear that?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, but there was nothing to hear.

“Not even crickets,” Emma said. There was only silence. A bit strange for the woods, even in their books.

“I’m gonna take a look around,” Roy said, grabbing up his gear.

“You shouldn’t go off by yourself,” Sam said, his, Dean’s or Emma’s attention not totally on the civilians behind them.

“That’s sweet,” Roy said sarcastically, glaring down at Sam. “Don’t worry about me.” And he left, striding off in front of the group. Dean looked over at Sam and Emma and just shrugged.

“All right everybody stays together,” he told them. “Lets go.” The carried on walking, following the direction which Roy had walked in.

“Hailey, over here,” Roy’s voice echoed through the tress. The group ran towards the voice, which was at Tommy’s campsite. Hailey’s breath caught in her throat at what she saw. The site was a mess. The tents were torn apart, everything left inside them strewn across the floor. And the were splattered with blood.

“Oh my God,” Hailey gasped, throwing her hand over her mouth in shock.

“Looks like a grizzly,” Roy told them.

“Tommy?” Hailey began calling through the trees, dropping her backpack. “Tommy!”

“Shhh,” Sam said, moving towards her. But she didn’t listen.

“Tommy?” she continued to call for her brother.

“Shhhhh,” Sam said a little louder, stepping up to her.

“Why?” Hailey asked.

“Something might still be out there,” Sam said, looking round him.

“Sam!” Dean called from outside of the campsite. While Hailey had been calling for her brother, Dean and Emma had gone off exploring around the camp, looking for anything that might clue them in to what they were up against. Sam came over to where they were, knelt on the ground beside what looked like drag marks.

“The bodies were dragged from the campsite,” Emma said, confirming what the marks were. “But here the tracks just vanish. That’s weird.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Dean said, he and Emma standing up. “That’s no skin walker or black dog.” They walked back into the campsite where Hailey, Ben and Roy were. Hailey was knelt beside Tommy’s tent, his broken cell phone in her hand. The back was torn from it and it was splattered with blood, just like the tents. Only thinking the worst, Hailey could feel herself beginning to cry.

“Hey, he could still be alive,” Emma said, kneeling down beside her and trying to be comforting.

“Help! Help!” A male voice called from the woods. The whole group were immediately up and running towards the source of the voice. But after running a little further, into a clearing, the stopped, finding no-one.

“It seemed like it was coming from around here didn’t it?” Hailey said.

“Everybody back to camp,” Emma said, the truth suddenly hitting her. They all headed back to the torn up camp only to find all their supplies and equipment were no longer there.

“Our packs,” Hailey said in surprise.

“So much for my GPS and my satellite phone,” Roy said, moving further into camp.

“What the hell is going on?” Hailey asked.

“It’s smart,” Emma told them. “It wants to cut us off so we can’t call for help.”

“You mean some one some nut job out there just stole all our gear?” Roy said. But Emma ignored his question, walking up to the brothers.

“I need to speak with you two… in private,” she told them before walking off. They followed her to a clearing a little distance away so they could talk properly.

“Good,” she said once they were out of earshot. “Let me see the journal.” Dean pulled it from his pocket and handed it to her, not sure of why he was doing so. She began flipping through pages.

“Alright, check that out,” she said, showing Sam and Dean the page she had stopped on. She pointed to a rough drawing of a creature, similar to the one that had attacked Tommy, with the title Wendigo above it.

“Oh come on, Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or northern Michigan,” Dean said. “I’ve never even heard of one this far west.”

“Think about it Dean, the claws, the way it can mimic a human voice.”

“Great,” Dean said, taking out his pistol. “Well then this is useless.” Emma smiled knowingly, pressing the journal back into Dean’s chest as she and Sam walked past him.

“We gotta get these people to safety,” Sam said, walking back to where they had left the other three.

“All right listen up, time to go,” Sam said to the group. “Things have gotten more… complicated.”

“What?” Hailey asked, confused.

“Kid don’t worry, whatever’s out there, I think I can handle it,” Roy said confidently.

“It’s not us we’re worried about,” Emma said. “If you shoot this thing you’re just gonna make it mad. We have to leave now.”

“One you’re talking nonsense,” Roy said. “Two you’re in no position to give anybody orders.”

“Relax,” Dean called into the group, speaking mostly to Roy.

“We never should have let you come out here in the first place, alright?” Sam said. “We’re trying to protect you.”

“You protect me?” Roy said, walking towards Sam and Emma. “I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you goodnight.”

“Yeah?” Emma said as Roy began getting in their faces. “It’s a damn near perfect hunter. It’s smarter than you, and it’s gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your stupid sorry ass out of here.”

“You guys know you’re crazy right?” Roy said with a laugh as he shoved Sam in the chest.

“Yeah? You ever hunt a Wen-” Before Sam could say any more, Dean stepped forward and he and Emma pulled Sam away. Emma may have been going at Roy, but she wasn’t about to tell him what was out there. He would thing they were crazier than he already did.

“Roy!” Hailey called out, joining the fold.

“Chill out,” Dean told Sam as he and Emma backed him away.

“Stop; stop it, everybody just stop,” Hailey said, causing everyone to go quiet. “Look, Tommy might still be alive, and I’m not leaving here without him.”

“It’s getting late,” Dean said after a pause. “This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We’ll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves.”

“How?” Hailey asked.

@~~>~~~

Inside the small campsite they had created, complete with campfire, Dean showed exactly how they were going to protect themselves as he and Emma walked round the site drawing symbols in the dirt.

“One more time that’s…?” Hailey asked, slightly sceptically.

“Anasazi symbols,” Dean answered. “It’s for protection. The wendigo can’t cross over them.” Roy scoffed at their answer. He still didn’t believe anything they were saying.

“Nobody likes a sceptic, Roy,” Emma said, turning towards Sam. He was sat at the edge of the campsite, staring out at nothing in particular. Dean and Emma walked over to him.

“You wanna tell me what’s goin on in that freaky head of yours?” Emma said as she sat next to him and Dean sat across from them.

“Emma….” Sam began.

“No you’re not fine,” Emma finished before he could. “You’re like a powder keg, it’s not like you.” Smiling slightly, Emma pointed towards Dean.

“He’s supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?”

“Dad’s not here,” Sam said finally. “I mean that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a sign, right?”

“Yeah you’re probably right,” Emma said, bowing her head.

“To tell you the truth I don’t think dad’s ever been to Lost Creek,” Dean told them.

“Then let’s get these people back to town and let’s hit the road, go find dad. I mean why are we still in here?”

“This is why,” Dean said, holding out the journal. “This book. This is dad’s single most valuable possession everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he’s passed it on to us, I think he wants us to pick up where he left off, you know saving people, hunting things. The family business.”

“That makes no sense,” Sam said. “Why doesn’t he just call us? Why doesn’t he tell us what he wants; tell us where he is?”

“I dunno. But the way I see it, dad’s giving us a job to do and I intend to do it.”

“Dean, no,” Sam said, staring his brother right in the eye. “I gotta find dad. I gotta find Jessica’s killer. It’s the only thing I can think about.”

“Ok, all right, Sam we’ll find them I promise,” Emma said, scooting forward slightly so she was closer to Sam. “Listen to me, you’ve gotta prepare yourself. I mean this search could take a while, and all that anger, you can’t keep it burning over the long haul, it’s gonna kill you. You gotta have patience.”

“How do you guys do it?” Sam asked them. “How does dad do it?”

“Well for one… them,” Dean said, nodding towards Hailey and Ben. “I mean I figure our family’s so screwed to hell; maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little more bearable.”

“I’ll tell you what else helps,” Dean continued after a slight pause. “Killing as many sons of bitches as I possibly can.”

“Help me! Please! Help!” the Wendigo called, breaking the moment. Sam, Dean and Emma jumped up as he did, moving towards the main group.

“He’s trying to draw us out. Just stay cool, stay put,” Dean said as the shouting continued, although his voice showed a little less than calm.

“Inside the magic circle,” Roy said sarcastically, to which Dean and Emma turned to glare at him.

“Help! Help me!” the creature continued to scream.

“Ok that’s no grizzly,” Roy said as the screamed echoed round their camp.

“It’s ok, you’ll be all right I promise,” Hailey said, holding her little brother. More noises are heard from within the woods, getting louder, and Hailey screamed as her and Ben fell back onto a log.

“It’s here,” Sam said, stating the somewhat obvious. With the growls getting louder, Roy shot into the woods several times.

“I hit it!” Roy said as the growling slowed, running off into the woods.

“Roy, no! Roy!” Dean called after him. Seeing no other option, he turned back to Hailey and Ben.

“Don’t move,” he said before he, Sam and Emma ran after Roy, calling to him.

“It’s over here!” Roy called from his position. “It’s in the tree!” Before the trio could reach him, the Wendigo reached down from the tree tops it was in and pulled Roy up with him, snapping his neck.

“Roy!” Emma called out as they reached the clearing and he was no longer there.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, and Sam has been awake most of the night, unable to sleep again. He and Emma sat on the outskirts of the camp, Emma asleep against the tree stump they were leaning on. Sam had stayed on watch most of the night, giving him the chance to think about a few things. Mostly what Dean had said to him last night.

Above everything, the one thing he wanted to do right now was find his dad. He would have some answers about the thing that had killed Jess. But Dean was right. They had no idea where their father was, and when their dad didn’t want to be found, he wasn’t. So what was he supposed to do until then, let someone else lose someone they love because he was being selfish? No, he wouldn’t let that happen to anyone else.

Sam watched as Emma began to slowly wake up beside him, and waited to make his way to where his brother was in the camp.

@~~>~~~

Dean was sat in the camp with Hailey and Ben, pacing round and making sure they were still safe for now.

“I don’t….” Hailey began, grabbing Dean’s attention. “I mean these types of things they aren’t supposed to be real.”

“I wish I could tell you different,” Dean said truthfully.

“How do we know it’s not out there watching us?” Hailey asked.

“We don’t. But we’re safe for now,” Dean said, flashing her one of his trademark smiles.

“How do you know about this stuff?”

“Kind of runs in the family,” Dean said, thinking about his dad, Sam, and Emma. Just then, two of the list produced themselves, Sam and Emma walking back into the camp area.

“Hey. So we’ve got half a chance in the daylight,” Sam said.

“And I, for one, want to kill this evil son of a bitch,” Emma finished.

“Well hell, you know I’m in,” Dean said, smirking at them.

@~~>~~~

Figuring that Hailey and Ben needed to know what they are up against, the trio explained to them about the Wendigo’s, Emma holding the journal open.

“Wendigo is a Cre-Indian word. It means evil that devours,” Emma began.

“They’re hundreds of years old,” Dean continued to explain. “Each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, other times a frontiersman or a miner or a hunter.”

“How does a man turn into one of those things?” Hailey asked, everything still not sinking in yet.

“Well it’s always the same,” Dean said in answer. “During some harsh winter a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. Becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp.”

“Like the Donnor Party,” Ben said.

“Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities,” Sam said.

“Speed, strength, immortality,” Emma spieled off.

“If you eat enough of it,” Dean said. “Over years, you become this less than human thing. You’re always hungry.”

“So if that’s true, how can Tommy still be alive?” Hailey asked. Dean glanced back at Sam and Emma before any of them dared to answer.

“You’re not gonna like it,” Dean said eventually.

“Tell me,” Hailey said persistently.

“More than anything, a Wendigo knows how to last long winters without food,” Dean told her. “It hibernates for years at a time, but when it’s awake it keeps it’s victims alive. It uh, stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother’s alive it’s keeping him somewhere dark, hidden and safe. We gotta track it back there.”

“And then how do we stop it?” Hailey asked, trying to speak her way out of the shock of what state her brother might be in, if he was alive.

“Well guns are useless,” Dean began in answer. “So are knives. Basically…. We gotta torch the sucker,” Dean finished, pulling out a can of lighter fluid and his lighter.

@~~>~~~

The group of five now began their search through the woods, following the tracks of blood and claw marks left by the Wendigo. After a minute, they found themselves in a clearing.

“Boys,” Emma called, looking up at the trees around them.

“What is it?” Dean asked as he and Sam walked up to her. Seeing where she was looking, they followed her gaze. The claw marks and blood was no longer smeared against the odd tree, allowing them to follow it. Every tree in the clearing were marked with bloody claw marks and broken branches.

“You know… I was thinking,” Emma said. “Those claw prints… so clear and distinct, they were almost too easy to follow.” Yep. Sam and Dean were now thinking the same thing. Someone, or something, had wanted them here. The Wendigo growled from the trees around them, and they knew they were right.

As they all begin to search around for the origin of the sound, Hailey backs against a tree, extremely scared. While she stands there, she begins to hear the sound of snapping branches above her head. Looking up, Hailey screams and rolls away just in time before Roy’s body comes crashing down at the spot where she was. As the body and Hailey drop to the floor, the trio move over to them, Sam going to Hailey and Dean and Emma examining Roy’s body.

“You okay? You got it?” Sam said as he helped Hailey up.

“His neck’s broke,” Dean said, him and Emma pulling into a standing position.

“Okay run, run, run, run, go, go!” Dean calls out, grabbing Emma’s hand and taking off into the woods. As they all run, Ben stumbles, falling over an exposed tree root. Sam ran back to help him up.

“Come on, I gotcha, I gotcha,” Sam said as he pulled him to his feet. The group is now separated, Sam and Ben running one way, Dean, Emma and Hailey running the other.

@~~>~~~

Dean, Emma and Hailey continue to run in their direction, oblivious to the fact that Sam and Ben are no longer behind them. The three are suddenly stopped in their tracks as the Wendigo appears in front of them. Hailey’s screams can be heard throughout the woods.

@~~>~~~

Sam and Ben continue running, reaching the spot where Dean, Emma and Hailey last were and finding nothing.

“Hailey?” Ben calls out to his sister. As Sam stops running beside him, he picked up the white cloth that was on the floor. It was the cloth Dean had been carrying in the gasoline bottle to torch the Wendigo.

“Emma! Dean!” Sam called into the woods, searching round desperately for them.

@~~>~~~

Sam and Ben continued to walk alone through the woods, searching for their missing family members.

“If it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?” Ben asked.

“Honestly, I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off,” Sam answered. They both continued walking round until something brightly coloured found Ben’s eyes. He bent down to find a trail of Dean’s M&M’s leading through the trees.

“They went this way,” Ben called back to Sam, picking up an M&M and handing it to him.

“It’s better than bread crumbs,” Sam said with a laugh, following the brightly coloured trail deeper into the woods.

@~~>~~~

Sam and Ben followed the trail, it leading them to the entrance of a tunnel with the words, ‘Warning! Danger! Do not enter. Extremely toxic material. Keep Out No Admittance.’ Sam ignored all of the warning signs, going in after his brother and best friend. Ben followed close behind, staying close to Sam.

As the two walk further into the tunnel, they hear the sound of the Wendigo’s growl and Sam pushes Ben against the wall, keeping him hidden. They watched from the shadows and see the creature coming down the tunnel towards them. Seeing the creature for the first time, Ben reaction is similar to his sisters and he immediately goes to scream. Seeing this as a bad thing, Sam clamps a hand over his mouth, keeping him quiet.

Once they see the Wendigo move down a different tunnel, Sam took his hand from Ben’s mouth and they continued walking. After a few yards, the floor boards below them began to creak and next thing, Sam and Ben went crashing through the floor, landing beside a pile of old bones. Ben quickly scuttled backwards.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Sam said, trying to be reassuring. Searching around where they had landed, Sam and Ben suddenly saw Dean, Emma and Hailey hanging from the ceilings, all seemingly unconscious.

“Hailey wake up!” Ben said as he ran to his sister.

“Dean! Emma!” Sam called as he too rushed over to them. Trying to revive Dean, Sam grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him.

“Dean!” Sam called again, and this time Dean opened his eyes. “Hey, you okay?” Sam finished as his brother winced.

“Yeah,” Dean replied gruffly. “Just, get Emma down would ya.” Doing as Dean asked, Sam moved over to Emma, watching as Ben continued to try and wake Hailey.

“Hailey, wake up, wake up,” he said just as she opened her eyes. Moving in front of Emma, Sam shook her gently, trying to wake her.

“Emma, wake up honey.” Hearing Sam, Emma woke with a start, grimacing as the pain kicked in.

“Hey. You ok?” Sam asked.

“I think so,” Emma replied. Sam smiled as he began to cut her down, happy to see she was still her usual, Fine-With-Every-Situation self during all this. Letting Emma fall down beside him and hold onto him for support, Sam moved to cut Dean down as Ben cut down Hailey.

“You guys sure you’re all right?” Sam asked as he manoeuvred Dean and Emma to the floor by the wall. Although they tried to hide it, both their face grimaced in pain as they moved.

“Yeah,” Dean replied.

“Yep,” Emma said. “Where is he?” she finished.

“He’s gone for now,” Sam answered. Behind them, Hailey, now on her feet, spotted Tommy still hanging from the roof.

“Tommy,” Hailey whispered as she edged towards him, crying. She reached up to touch his cheek and he suddenly jerked his head up, eyes open, causing Hailey to scream in surprise.

“Cut him down,” Hailey called to Sam. He did, and the he, Hailey and Ben lowered Tommy to the floor.

“We’re gonna get you home,” Hailey said comfortingly to Tommy. Still sat by the wall, Dean was loading a gun, Emma watching him curiously.

“Check it out,” Dean said as he and Emma stood shakily. The others turned to find them both holding flare guns.

“Flare guns… those’ll work,” Sam commented. They were, after all, a form of fire. Dean laughed lightly, twirling the guns in his usual show-off fashion.

@~~>~~~

Trying to find a way out of the caves, the six of them, Sam, Dean, Emma, Hailey, Tommy and Ben, made their way down a tunnel. Tommy was supported in the middle of them, limping after days of being hung from the ceiling. The Wendigo’s growl suddenly echoed round the cave, stopping them all in their tracks.

“Looks like someone’s home for supper,” Dean joked.

“We’ll never outrun it,” Hailey said. Dean looked back at the group, and he had to agree. But there was another way.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” he said as he turned to Sam and Emma.

“Yeah I think so,” Sam replied. Knowing all too well what he was thinking, Emma took hold of Dean’s hand. If he was about to do what she thought he was, he wasn’t going alone. Dean smiled at her slightly before he turned back to Hailey, Tommy and Ben.

“All right listen to me. Stay with Sam, he’s gonna get you out of here,” Dean told them.

“What are you gonna do?” Hailey asked. Dean winked at her before he and Emma walked off into a separate tunnel, Dean yelling into the air.

“Chow time you freaky bastard! Yeah that’s right, bring it on baby, I taste good.” Soon, his and Emma voices could only be heard as soft mumblings as they walked further into the tunnels and away from the others.

“All right come on. Hurry!” Sam said, walking down the opposite tunnel with the three following behind him.

@~~>~~~

Dean and Emma continued their trek down the separate tunnel, calling out in front of them.

“Hey, beastie!” Emma called into the air. “We’re right here, come and get it!” As if in answer, the Wendigo growled from some other tunnel, causing Emma to suddenly realise that maybe Dean didn’t have the best ideas.

“This better not get me killed,” she said to Dean.

“You were the one who wanted to come be the bait with me,” Dean said.

“Yeah, I’m gonna leave you down here on your own,” was Emma’s reply. Another growl from the Wendigo and Emma was again questioning the plan.

“Still, you get me killed down here,” she said. “I swear, I’m comin’ back to haunt your ass.”

“I’ve got no complaints to that,” Dean said cockily.

“And I ain’t gonna be easy to get rid of, you know that?”

“Countin’ on it,” Dean said before he yelled into the tunnel again.

“Hey! Hey you want some white meat bitch? I’m right here!”

@~~>~~~

In another tunnel, Sam, Hailey, Tommy and Ben also hear the growls of the Wendigo, but these are a little closer. Stopping suddenly and thinking that maybe Dean’s plan wasn’t working, Sam decided to take matters into his own hands.

“Get him outta here,” he told Ben and Hailey.

“Sam, no,” Hailey said, figuring what he was gonna do.

“Go! Go!” Sam said persistently. Knowing she wasn’t gonna change his mind or be able to help him, Hailey and Ben helped Tommy towards the end of the cave. Sam pulled out the flare gun, edging down a tunnel where the growl had originated from.

“Come on. Come on,” he whispered, eager to get out of here. As he listened carefully, a growl echoed from the other side of the tunnel. Sam turned, and unfortunately came face to face with the Wendigo.

Thinking fast, Sam shot at it, but it dodged and he missed. Not taking another chance, he ran down the tunnel Hailey, Tommy and Ben had gone, and they had heard the growl and the shot.

“Sam!” Hailey called as he came barrelling round the corner.

“Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry,” he called, guiding the group to the end of the tunnel, closely followed by the Wendigo.

“Get behind me,” Sam called to the other, their only exit blocked by the Wendigo. They did, and Sam body blocked the group, intending on defending them to the last.

“Hey!” Dean and Emma’s voice called in unison from behind the Wendigo. It turned, and both fired of a flare into it’s stomach. They all watched in awe as the Wendigo burst into flames from the inside out and was reduced to a pile of ashes.

“Not bad, huh?” Dean said, earning himself a grateful smile from the group in front of him.

@~~>~~~

With the Wendigo down, they had called every service they knew and they were now all there. They were outside the ranger station where an ambulance was loading up Tommy while a police man was interviewing Ben, while Sam and Emma stood to the side.

“And the bear came back again after you yelled at it?” the policeman asked after Ben had give them his story.

“That’s when it circled the campsite; I mean this grizzly must have weighed 800-900 pounds,” Ben lied, rather professionally.

“All right we’ll go after it first thing,” the policeman told them. In the background, Hailey and Dean walked past, having just had their wounds checked over.

“So I don’t know how to thank you,” Hailey said. Leaning against his car, Dean simply smiled at her cheekily.

“Must you cheapen the moment?” Hailey finished with a smile.

“Yeah,” Dean joked, but he glanced quickly over at Emma, his girlfriend and the one he was staying with, just as the ambulance woman walked over to Hailey.

“You riding with your brother?” she asked Hailey.

“Yeah,” Hailey replied as she walked away and Ben, Sam and Emma walked over.

“Let’s go,” she said to her brother, and he turned to Sam and they both acknowledge what they had been through with a simply nod. Before turning to leave, Hailey kissed Dean gently on his cheek.

“I hope you find your father,” she said before she and her brother turned away.

“Thanks Sam. Thanks Emma,” Hailey said as she past them and stepped into the ambulance. Sam and Emma moved to sit beside Dean as the ambulance doors closed.

“I hate camping,” Emma said once the ambulance had driven away.

“Me too,” Sam and Dean both spoke up in chorus.

“Sam, you know we’re gonna find dad, right?” Dean said after a minute of silence.

“Yeah I know….” Sam began. “But in the mean time… I’m driving,” he finished, turning to his big brother. Emma watched with a smile as Dean reluctantly handed his car keys over to Sam. The three got into the car, Sam in the drivers seat, and they drove off to continue the search for John Winchester.


	3. Dead in the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean and Emma investigate a series of mysterious drownings written off as suicides. They discover the spirit is an angry little boy with the power to travel through water who is taking revenge on certain town inhabitants for a dark secret buried long ago. Dean forms a bond with a young boy who seems to have the power of premonition.

Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. A peaceful little cabin by the lake, home to Bill Carlton and his kids, Sophie and Will. It is a typical family morning. Bill is sat and the table with his newspaper, and Will is sat on the counter eating cereal. Sophie walks in, all kitted out for sports.

“Morning Daddy,” she says, kissing him on the cheek before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Morning sweetheart,” Bill replies.

“All these workouts Soph, I don’t know,” Will says, looking his sister over. “Guys don’t like buff girls.”

“Yeah well, girls don’t like guys who still live at home,” Sophie retorts. Will jumps off the counter, chuckling sarcastically at his sister as she chuckles back. She opens the back door to leave.

“Be careful,” Will called after her.

“I will,” she replied as she left the house.

@~~>~~~

Outside, beside the lake, Sophie Carlton stood on the dock ready to take her mourning swim. She dove into the water gracefully, sliding beneath the surface. And from within the water, she can hear the distorted sound of a whisper.

Coming up above the surface, Sophie looks around for the source of the whisper. Seeing no-one, she continues to swim. But there is someone, or something, watching her, from beneath the water. Suddenly, Sophie is pulled further down into the water. Once the bubbles go, it is clear that this normal family mourning had just been ruined.

@~~>~~~

A little outside of town, Sam, Dean and Emma are in a small diner, having just finished eating. Dean is sat going through the local newspapers, looking for their next gig, while Emma sits beside him, stabbing tiredly at her food. Watching their table, a pretty blonde waitress walks over to them.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked. Dean turned up, pen in mouth, and smiled. Emma rolls her eyes as Sam walks back over to them.

“Just the check, please,” Emma tells the waitress.

“Okay,” she replies, walking away and still smiling at Dean. Once she is gone, Emma aggressively smacks Dean across the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for?” Dean said, massaging the back of his head. In answer, Emma simple glared at him, then shifted her gaze to the waitress.

“Her!” Dean says, shocked… well actually, not all that shocked at what Emma might be thinking. Still glaring at Dean, Emma folded her arms across her chest.

“I wasn’t thinking for myself,” Dean said with a cocky smile. “You, girl, are more than enough for one guy. I was thinking for misery over here.” He nodded towards Sam, motioning to the misery.

“What? No!” Sam said, finally getting wind of the conversation.

“You know, Sam, you are allowed to have fun once in a while,” Dean said, and he motioned over to the waitress and she walked into the kitchen. “That’s fun.” When Sam doesn’t answer, he sighs and hands him the newspaper he had been circling.

“Here, take a look at this, I think I got one,” he said, pointing at the picture of the girl he had circled. “Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, 18, walks into the lake, doesn’t walk out. Authorities dragged the water—Nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year. None of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago.”

“A funeral?” Sam questioned.

“They buried an empty coffin. For uh, a closure or whatever,” Dean said, not really noticing Sam’s tone.

“Closure? What closure? People don’t just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them,” Sam said, his voice getting at something more personal to them.

“Something you want to say to me?” Dean said, turning to his brother.

“The trail for dad, it’s getting colder every day,” Sam said simply“Exactly, so what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Something, anything.

“You know what? I’m sick of this attitude,” Dean said, getting angry. Seeing what can only be described as one of their ‘moments’, Emma avoided looking at either of them, choosing to concentrate on the newspaper in front of her.

“You don’t think we wanna find dad as much as you do?” Dean continued, inadvertently bringing Emma into the conversation.

“Yeah, I know you do, it’s just….” Sam began, cut off by Dean. After only one word, Emma can hear the emotion between both of them and chooses this time to look up.

“We’re the ones that have been with him every single day for the past two years, while you’ve been off to college going to pep rallies.” Being her usual mediator, but for reason of her own, Emma places a gently hand on Dean’s shoulder, forcing him to pay attention to her. One look, and the conversation turned calm.

“We will find dad,” Dean continued. “But until then, we’re gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?” As if in answer, Sam rolled his eyes. Before Dean can even think about saying anything else, the waitress walks past again, distracting Dean.

“All right, Lake Manitoc,” Sam begins. He and Emma look up to see his attention elsewhere. Knowing exactly where his attention is, one thought comes to Emma’s mind. Not for him, yeah right!

“Hey!” Emma said, turning Dean’s head to face her.

“Huh?” Dean said as his attention was drawn back to Emma.

“How far?” Emma finishes, the edge in her voice telling him he had better keep his attention where it was, or fear losing something important to him.

@~~>~~~

Not that far away, was the answer Dean eventually gave. Driving into the small town, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up to the Carlton’s cabin. They knocked politely and waited until Will Carlton answered the door.

“Will Carlton?” Dean said in greeting.

“Yeah that’s right,” Will answered.

“I’m Agent Ford,” Dean continued, showing Will his badge then motioning towards Sam and Emma. “This is Agent Hamill and Agent Fisher. We’re with the U.S. Wildlife Service.”

@~~>~~~

Asking the typical U.S. Wildlife Service questions, Sam, Dean and Emma walked with Will out to the lake. The four stopped at the edge of the water, while Bill Carlton sat alone on a bench at the end of the dock.

“She was about 100 yards out,” Will told them. “That’s where she got dragged down.”

“Are you sure she didn’t just drown?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. “She was a varsity swimmer. She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as she was in her own bathtub.”

“So no splashing? No signs of distress?” Sam asked.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you,” Will answered.

“Did you see any shadows in the water?” Emma asked. “Maybe some dark shape breach the surface?”

“No. Again, she was really far out there.”

“You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?” Dean asked.

“No, never. Why? What do you think’s out there?” Will asked finally.

“We’ll let you know as soon as we do,” Emma replied as her and Dean turned back to walk to the car.

“What about your father?” Sam asked, still stood where he was and looking out over the dock. “Can we talk to him?” At the mention of his father, Will turned to watch him, still sat on the bench, motionless.

“Look, if you don’t mind, I mean… he didn’t see anything and he’s kind of been through a lot,” Will said.

“We understand,” Sam said, turning and walking to the car with Dean and Emma.

@~~>~~~

Next stop for the trio, the local police station. Still using their identities as U.S. Wildlife Service, Sam, Dean and Emma were now talking to the sheriff, Jake.

“Now, I’m sorry, but why does the Wildlife Service care about an accidental drowning?” Jake asked as he guided them towards his office.

“You sure it’s accidental?” Sam said. “Will Carlton saw something grab his sister.”

“Like what?” Jake said, following the trio into his office and closing the door. “Here sit please,” Jake said, and they did, sitting in front of the desk as Jake sat behind it.

“There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake,” Jake continued. “There’s nothing even big enough to pull down a person, unless it was the Loch Ness monster.”

“Yeah….” Dean said with a laugh, turning to Sam and Emma. “Right.”

“Will Carlton was traumatized,” Jake said. “And sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still, we dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep just to be sure, and there was nothing down there.”

“That’s weird though,” Emma began, leaning forward slightly. “I mean that’s… that’s the third missing body this year.”

“I know,” Jake said, his voice full of emotion. “These are people from my town. These are people I care about.”

“I know,” Emma said sympathetically.

“Anyway,” Jake went on, sighing and leaning back into his chair. “All this, it won’t be a problem much longer.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, forgetting about their fake personas.

“Well the dam, of course,” Jake said, eyeing the three suspiciously now.

“Of course… the dam,” Dean said. “It’s uh… sprung a leak.”

“It’s falling apart,” Jake corrected. “And the feds won’t give us the grant to repair it, so they’ve opened the spillway. In another six months there won’t be much of a lake. There won’t be much of a town either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that.”

“Exactly,” Dean said, smiling nervously. Before Jake could question them about their lake of knowledge on the subject, there was a light tapping on the door and the room turned to see a young girl stood in the doorway.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” she said quietly. “I can come back later.”

“Gentlemen, this is my daughter,” Jake said, standing up.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Dean,” Dean said, extending a hand which she took.

“Andrea Bar,” the girl introduced herself. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Dean replied, letting go of her hand.

“They’re from the Wildlife Service about the lake,” Jake said, and Sam, Dean and Emma could sense something in what they were saying. Like there was something that wasn’t being said. Andrea’s remark helped the theory along.

“Oh,” she said, clearly keen to avoid the subject. And the opportunity came as a small boy walked in from behind Andrea.

“Oh hey there,” Dean said as he walked in. “What’s your name?” Without saying a word, the boy walked away, followed quickly by Andrea.

“His name is Lucas,” Jake told them as they continued to watch Andrea and Lucas. One look at the two of them and it was very clear they were mother and son.

“Is he okay?” Emma asked as the three turned back to Jake.

“My grandson’s been through a lot. We all have.” Trying to change and avoid the subject, Jake motioned Sam, Dean and Emma out of his office. “Well if there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know.”

“Thanks,” Dean said, stopping beside Andrea and Lucas. “You know, now that you mentioned it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced hotel.”

“Lakefront motel,” Andrea told them. “Go around the corner, it’s about two blocks south.”

“Two… would you mind showing us?” Dean said. Andrea laughed slightly, and Sam rolled his eyes. Emma, on the other hand, chose not to stay and walked out of the police station before the others. Two scenes in one day, not her thing.

“You want me to walk you two blocks?” Andrea asked.

“Not if it’s any trouble,” Dean said pointedly.

“I’m headed that way anyway,” she said, turning to her father. “I’ll be back to pick up Lucas at three.” She then turned to the boy in question.

“We’ll go to the park, okay sweetie?” she said, kissing the top of his head and leading Sam and Dean out of the police station. Dean waved as he walked out and Jake nodded their way.

“Thanks again,” Sam said as he followed Dean and Andrea out.

@~~>~~~

Outside, Emma had joined back up with Sam and Dean, and the three were following Andrea down the road.

“So… cute kid,” Dean said, attempting a conversation starter.

“Thanks,” Andrea simply said.

“Kids are the best, huh?” Dean continued. While Emma rolled her eyes, Andrea just ignored his comment, stopping outside the Lakefront Motel.

“There it is. Like I said. Two blocks,” Andrea pointed out.

“Thanks,” Sam said.

“Must be hard with your sense of direction,” Andrea said to Dean. “Never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line.” At her words, Emma let out a small burst of laugh and tried to hide it with a quick cough.

“Enjoy your stay!” Andrea called back to them as she walked away. Once she was out of earshot, Emma turned back to Dean.

“‘Kids are the best’?” she said, repeating his phrase. “You don’t even like kids.”

“I love kids,” Dean said defensively.

“Name three children that you even know,” Emma said. Lifting his hand in order to count of the numbers, Dean began to think. And no names came to mind. Knowing she would be here all day if she waited for Dean to think of this answer, Emma waved her hand in a ‘forget it’ manner and walked towards the motel, followed by Sam.

“I’m thinking!” Dean said, following them and scratching his head in thought.

@~~>~~~

Inside there room in the Lakeside Motel, two blocks from the police station, Emma sat at the table with her laptop out.

“So there’s the three drowning victims this year,” Emma told the boys.

“Any before that?” Sam asked.

“Uh yeah…” Emma said, pulling up more sites. “Six more spread out over the past 35 years. Those bodies were never recovered either. If there is something out there, it’s picking up its pace.”

“So what, we got a lake monster on a binge?” Dean suggested.

“This whole lake monster thing, it… it just bugs me,” Emma said.

“Why?” Dean asked, him and Sam moving closer behind Emma.

“Loch Ness, uh Lake Champlain. There are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, almost nothing. Whatever it is out there, no one’s living to talk about it.”

Noticing something on one of the accounts Emma had up, Dean pointed it out to her and Sam.

“Wait, Bar, Christopher Bar. Where have I heard that name before?”

“Christopher Bar, the victim in May,” Emma began, reading the page. She opened up the link to bring up more information and a picture. One of Lucas, soaking wet with a towel wrapped round him and a officer by his side.

“Oh… Christopher Bar was Andrea’s husband. Lucas’ father,” Emma continued. “Apparently, he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned, two hours before the kid got rescued.”

“Maybe we have an eyewitness after all,” Sam said, looking down at the article.

“No wonder that kid was so freaked out. Watching one of your parents die isn’t something you just get over.”

At his words, Emma turned in her seat and looked up at Dean. In those few words, and from the look in his eyes, she could guess at what was running though his kind. She just wished she knew for sure. She wished that, just once in a while, Dean would think about opening up to her. But then again, Dean wasn’t that sort of guy. Never had been, never would be. No matter how hard she tried, just to get him to talk to her. Tell her what was going on in that mind of his.

Sometimes she realised, even when they were so different, Sam and Dean were so alike. Neither would open up, say what they were going through. It was the way they were brought up. To be brave. But neither of them knew, the bravest thing you could do, was ask for help when you needed it.

@~~>~~~

Looking for their one and only lead in this case, Sam, Dean and Emma found Andrea and Lucas in the park. Andrea was sat on the outskirts on a bench, watching Lucas play.

“Can we join you?” Sam said as they stepped up to her.

“I’m here with my son,” Andrea said, looking briefly up at them.

“Oh…. Mind if we say hi?” Dean said, walking towards Lucas and practically dragging Emma along with him. Watching them leave, Andrea laughed slightly and turned to Sam as he sat next to her.

“Tell your friend those whole ‘Jerry Maguire’ thing’s not gonna work on me,” she told him.

“I don’t think that’s what this is about,” Sam said honestly.

@~~>~~~

While Sam and Andrea sat talking, Dean and Emma walked over to Lucas, who was sat leaning against a bench and colouring, with toy soldiers set up beside him.

“How’s it goin?” Dean said as he and Emma stopped at the bench beside Lucas. They both knelt down so they were sat in front of Lucas. Trying to make conversation, Dean picked up one of the toy soldiers.

“Oh I used to love these things,” he said. And acting like the big kid he was, he started making gun noises and explosions, throwing one of the soldiers down like it had been shot. Begging him to stop, Emma gave him a look and Dean took the hint.

“So crayons is more your thing?” he continued. “That’s cool. Chicks dig artists.” Emma scoffed softly at his comment and began looking through the pile of pictures Lucas had drawn. Normal drawings for a kid. Houses, bicycles, huge black swirls.

“Hey these are pretty good,” Emma said, dropping the pictures.

“You mind if I sit and draw with you for a while?” Dean said, picking up a crayon. “I’m not so bad myself.”

Dean sat on the table beside Lucas, picking up a pad of paper. Emma also moved, leaning against Dean’s knee as he drew.

“You know, I’m thinking you can hear me; you just don’t want to talk,” Dean began. “I don’t know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad. I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I saw something.”

Seeing the emotion in his eyes again, Emma hugged Dean’s knee quickly. He didn’t wanna talk about it, and pulling it out of him wouldn’t help.

“Anyway…” Dean said, swallowing slightly as he continued. “Well maybe you don’t think anyone will listen to you, or uh… or believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don’t even have to say anything, you could draw me a picture about what you saw that day with your dad on the lake.”

Lucas didn’t do or say anything. He just continued to draw.

“Okay, no problem,” Dean said. “This is for you,” he finished, handing the picture to Lucas.

“This is my family,” he said, pointing out the different people.

“That’s my dad.” At the next person, Dean paused slightly before skipping quickly over the name. “That’s my mom. That’s my geek brother, and that’s me and this pretty girl here.” At her mention, Dean ran his fingers roughly through Emma’s hair. She smiled, both of them looking at Lucas and waiting for a reaction that didn’t come.

“All right, so I’m a sucky artist,” Dean said finally, dropping the pad.

“See you around, Lucas,” Emma said as both of them stood up and left.

Once Dean and Emma had left his sightline, Lucas picked up Dean’s drawing, staring down at it.

@~~>~~~

Walking back over to Sam and Andrea, Dean and Emma joined in with the conversation that was already in full flow.

“Lucas hasn’t said a word,” Andrea was saying to Sam. “Not even to me. Not since his dad’s accident.”

“Yeah we heard. Sorry,” Dean said as he and Emma stopped beside them.

“What are the doctors saying?” Sam asked.

“That it’s a kind of post-traumatic stress,” Andrea told them.

“That can’t be easy, for either of you,” Emma said sympathetically.

“We moved in with my dad,” Andrea said. “He helps out a lot. It’s just… when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw….”

“Kids are strong,” Dean added, trying to be supportive. “You’d be surprised what they can deal with.”

“You know, he used to have such life,” Andrea said with a smile on her face at the memories. “He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish….” Andrea paused as Lucas walked up to them.

“Hey sweetie,” Andrea said as he stopped beside Dean. Without a word, he held a picture out to Dean. The picture was of what looked like a cabin or hut.

“Thanks… thanks Lucas,” Dean said as Lucas walked back to his table, Andrea watching him curiously.

@~~>~~~

At the Carlton’s house, the mood had changed so much in the past couple of days. There was no more laughter or jokes. Now, all Bill Carlton did was sit in his chair, watching the TV. That or sat out on the dock.

While he sat in his chair now, his son Will walked somberly into the living room.

“Hey dad, you should probably eat something,” Will said, his dad ignoring him. “I’m gonna make some dinner, okay?”

As his dad continued to ignore him, Will went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. He washed a knife under the sink and turned to chop the vegetables, leaving the water running. When he finally turns to turn the tap off, he notices the water had turned brown and quickly turns it off. As the water stops flowing, black water begins bubbling up from the drain until the sink is full.

Sighing heavily, Will rolled up his sleeve and reached into the water filled sink to drain the water. He pulls out the plug, but the water stays in the sink. Thinking it’s a blocked drain, Will reached his hand back into the sink to try and sort it. But instead, something inside the water took a hold of him, pulling his face under. He scrambles about, trying to pull himself up from the water, but with no effect. After a minute, his struggles cease as he is drown, and the drain finally empties.

@~~>~~~

Back in the motel room, and it’s just Dean and Emma. Emma sat watching Dean with a smile on her face as he flicked through his fathers journal, trying to find an answer to this mystery of a case.

“You know, I didn’t know you were so good with kids,” Emma said, finally breaking the silence.

“Don’t worry babes,” Dean said, not looking up. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know yet.”

“Yeah, that has come to light recently,” Emma said, not all too sure if she wanted Dean to hear it or not.

“Meaning?” Dean said, turning to her.

“Well, I know you never talk about you mom, but….” Emma began, but Dean cut her off as he sighed loudly and turned away.

“Come on Dean,” Emma said, insistent on sticking to the subject this time. “That stuff you said with Lucas today. I was there too, you can’t expect me to forget it.”

“I didn’t say anything about my mom,” Dean said simply.

“No, but you were thinking it,” Emma said. She knew it was the truth when Dean stayed quiet.

“I get it, you know,” Emma continued softly. “I know you think I don’t, but I do.” Dean turned and slowly came eye to eye with Emma.

“Emma, it’s just… I’m just….” Emma let out a gentle laugh as Dean trailed off.

“I get that too,” Emma said, knowing exactly what he meant. “I just want you to know that when you are, you’ve got me.” Smiling at her, Dean softly stroked Emma cheek as she smiled back. He leant in and kissed her, lacing his fingers through her hair. They pulled apart as the door flew open and Sam strode in.

“So, I think it’s safe to say we can rule out Nessie,” Sam said as an hello.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked.

“I just drove past the Carlton house. There was an ambulance there,” Sam answered. “Will Carlton is dead.”

“He drowned?” Dean asked.

“Yep, in the sink,” Sam announced, to which both Dean and Emma stared at him.

“What the hell?” Dean said. “So you’re right, this isn’t a creature; we’re dealing with something else.”

“Yeah, but what?” Sam questioned.

“I don’t know. A water wraith maybe? Some kind of demon? I mean, something that controls water….” Something came to Dean. “Water that comes from the same source.”

“The lake,” Emma said as all three came to the same conclusion.

“Yeah,” Dean remarked.

“Which would explain why it’s upping the body count,” Emma continued. “The lake is draining. It’ll be dry in a few months. Whatever this thing is, whatever it wants, it’s running out of time.”

“And if it can get through the pipes, it can get to anyone, almost anywhere,” Dean said. “This is gonna happen again soon.”

“And we do know one other thing for sure,” Sam said. “We know this has got something to do with Bill Carlton.”

“Yeah, It took both his kids,” Emma said, giving the obvious answer, although it was clear the Sam knew something they didn’t.

“And I’ve been asking around,” Sam began to tell them. “Lucas’ dad, Chris. Bill Carlton’s godson.”

“Let’s go pay Mr. Carlton a visit,” Dean said, standing up and throwing his jacket on.

@~~>~~~

Up at Bill Carlton’s house and he is again sat on the bench at the end of the dock, string out blankly at the water.

“Mr. Carlton,” Sam said, announcing their presence as he, Dean and Emma walked up the dock.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind,” Emma said as they stopped beside him.

“We’re from the Department.…” Dean continued, but was cut off by a distraught Bill Carlton.

“I don’t care who you’re with,” he said, not looking up at them. “I’ve answered enough questions today.”

“Your son said he saw something in that lake,” Sam continued. “What about you? You ever see anything out there? Mr. Carlton, Sophie’s drowning and Will’s death. We think there might be a connection to you or your family.”

“My children are gone,” Bill Carlton said, cutting into Sam’s speech. “It’s… it’s worse than dying. Go away… please.”

Seeing what was clearly a distraught father, Emma turned to leave, making sure the boys followed her and didn’t try to ask any more questions.

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma made their way back to the car, discussing what little they had just found out.

“What do you think?” Sam asked the other two.

“Aw, I think the poor guy’s been through hell,” Emma said.

“I also think he’s not telling us something,” Dean added as they stopped beside the car which was parked outside of Bill Carlton’s House. Dean stared up at the house, noticing something suddenly.

“What is it?” Emma asked, seeing the way Dean was looking up at the house.

“Huh. Maybe Bill’s not the only one who knows something,” Dean replied, pulling Lucas’ picture from his pocket. It was a pretty accurate resemblance of the house in front of them. Pointing it towards Sam and Emma, they too saw the connection he did. Lucas.

@~~>~~~

Picking up on one of the best leads they had since they started this case, Sam, Dean and Emma went to Andrea’s house to speak to Lucas.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Andrea had said after Dean had asked to speak to him.

“I just need to talk to him, just for a few minutes,” Dean continued persistently.

“He won’t say anything, what good’s it gonna do?” Andrea said.

“Andrea, we think more people might get hurt,” Sam said, trying to get through to her the best he could. “We think something’s happening out there.”

“My husband, the others, they just drowned,” Andrea said, truly believing that. “That’s all.”

“If that’s what you really believe then we’ll go,” Emma said, trying to be comforting and persistent at the same time, something she had had to learn to master with Dean.

“But if you think there’s even a possibility that something else could be going on here, please let me talk to your son,” Dean finished, desperately needing her to say yes.

@~~>~~~

And she said yes. Sam, Dean, Emma and Andrea all walked to the doorway of Lucas’ room, watching him drawing with the toy soldiers spread out around them. Dean carried on walking further into the room, kneeling in front of me.

“Hey Lucas. You remember me?” He looks down at the pictures Lucas has drawn, seeing two more pictures of a red bicycle.

“You know, I, uh… I wanted to thank you for that last drawing,” Dean continued. “But the thing is, I need your help again.” Giving no kind of response to the fact that Dean was there, Lucas continued drawing what looked like a person in water. Watching him, Dean opened up the picture Lucas had given him, laying it down in front of him.

“How did you know to draw this? Did you know something bad was gonna happen? Maybe you could nod yes or no for me.” Lucas said nothing.

“You’re scared,” Dean went on. “It’s okay, I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too.”

Knowing it was all coming out now, Dean glanced quickly up at Emma standing by the doorway, suddenly wishing all this had come out earlier.

“I didn’t feel like talking, just like you,” Dean said as he turned back to Lucas. “But see, my mom, I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe… your dad wants you to be brave, too.”

Finally giving a reaction, Lucas dropped his crayon and looked up at Dean. Still watching him, he handed him another picture, this one of a church, a small house and a boy with a red bicycle.

“Thanks, Lucas,” Dean said, watching as he went back to his drawings.

@~~>~~~

Searching for the location in the picture, Sam, Dean and Emma were driving away from Andrea’s.

“Andrea said the kid never drew like that till his dad died,” Dean said, his eyes on the road.

“There are cases going through a traumatic experience could make people more sensitive to premonitions, psychic tendencies,” Emma suggested.

“Whatever’s out there, what if Lucas is tapping into it somehow?” Dean asked the car collectively. “I mean it’s only a matter of time before somebody else drowns.” Sam looked a little less than convinced, and Dean picked up on this.

“If you got a better lead, please,” Dean said. And Sam didn’t.

“All right… we got another house to find,” he said, looking down at the picture.

“The only problem is there’s about a thousand yellow two-stories in this county alone,” Dean said.

“See this church?” Sam said, motioning the picture towards Dean and Emma. “I bet there’s less than a thousand of those around here.”

“Oh, college boy thinks he’s so smart,” Dean joked. The other two laughed slightly, leaving a small silence when they stopped. Pushing out of the silences, Emma leaned against Dean’s seat from the back of the car.

“You know, um… what you said about your mom… that’s one of those things you never told me before,” Emma said, going back to their previous conversation in the motel.

“It’s no big deal,” Dean said, brushing it off. But Emma carried on staring at Dean from her position, making him slightly uncomfortable at the look she was getting in her eyes.

“Oh God, it’s not gonna be one of those moments, is it?” he said. Emma laughed softly, wrapping herself loosely round Dean’s neck and kissing his cheek. Now this was the Dean she was used to… and could deal with, unfortunately.

@~~>~~~

Looking now for the church and not just the house, Sam, Dean and Emma eventually found the scene inside Lucas’ picture.

The yellow house was owned by an old women living on her own who seemed shocked to see three strange young people standing on her doorstep.

“We’re sorry to bother you ma’am, but does a little boy live here, by chance?” Dean said and the shock suddenly turned to sorrow. “He might wear a blue ball cap, has a red bicycle.”

“No sir. Not for a very long time,” she began, letting them into her house and telling the story. “Peter’s been gone for 35 years now. The police never… I never had any idea what happened. He just disappeared.”

While she was talking, something caught Emma’s eyes. A set of toy soldiers set out on the table. She pointed them out to Dean, both of them thinking the same thing. Maybe there was another reason why Lucas had been playing with them.

“Losing him,” the woman continued. “You know, it’s… it’s worse than dying.” Similar looks of realization came over Sam, Dean and Emma’s face at the use of a phrase they had heard only once before.

“Did he disappear from here,” Dean asked, knocking away the look. “I mean, from this house?” the woman shook her head.

“He was supposed to ride his bike straight home after school, and he never showed up,” she said. Dean’s attention was now drawn by something else. Walking to the table, Dean pulled a picture of two boys from the mirror, one with a red bicycle. He turned it over and read from the back.

“ ‘Peter Sweeney and Billy Carlton, 1970.’ ” he looked over at Sam and Emma. Another connection, leading straight to Bill Carlton.

@~~>~~~

Back at his house, Bill Carlton was still sat on the dock, looking like he hadn’t moved in days. He was looking out at the lake, seemingly talking to something, or someone, in it.

“You’ve taken everything, everyone. I’ve got nothing left. I didn’t understand. I didn’t believe. Now I think I do. I think I finally know what you want.”

@~~>~~~

Now in the car, Sam, Dean and Emma were driving down to Bill Carlton’s place, going over everything they knew about this case.

“Okay this little boy, Peter Sweeney, vanishes, and this is all connected to Bill Carlton somehow,” Sam said.

“Yeah, Bill sure as hell seems to be hiding something, huh?” Dean continued.

“And Bill, the people he loves, are all getting punished.”

“So what if Bill did something to Peter?”

“What if Bill killed him?” Emma added, speaking up.

“Then Peter’s spirit would be furious. It’d want revenge. It’s possible,” Dean finished as they pulled up to Bill Carlton’s house, getting out of the car and checking round for him.

“Mister Carlton?” Sam and Emma called into the air. And in answer the sound of an engine broke through the silence of the lake.

“Hey, check it out,” Dean said as the trio turned to see Bill Carlton driving out onto the lake in a boat. Trying to keep him off the lake and live for as long as possible, Sam, Dean and Emma raced to the dock, yelling out to him.

“Mister Carlton!” they called out in unison. “You need to come back! Come out of the water! Turn the boat around!”

But Bill Carlton didn’t. He simply turned to give the three a quick glance before driving further out. And as he went out further, a torrent of water rose up beneath his boat, sending him and the boat spiraling through the air. Sam, Dean and Emma jumped back in horror as the boat and Bill Carlton sank beneath the surface.

@~~>~~~

Still with their persona’s from the Wildlife Service, Sam, Dean and Emma headed down to the police station with Jake. Andrea was there when they walked in, comforting Lucas who was rocking uncomfortably.

“Baby what’s wrong?” Andrea was saying as Sam, Dean and Emma followed Jake into the station.

“Sam, Dean, Emma,” Andrea said, looking up as they entered. “I didn’t expect to see you here.

“So now you’re on a first-name basis,” Jake said to his daughter. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought you dinner,” she said, handing him a paper bag.

“I’m sorry sweetheart,” Jake said, pushing the bag away. “I don’t really have the time.”

“I heard about Bill Carlton, is it true? Is something going on with the lake?”

“Right now we don’t know what the truth is. But I think it might be better if you and Lucas went on home.” At Jake’s statement, Lucas jumped up, whimpering, and grabbed onto Dean’s arm.

“Lucas, hey, what is it?” Dean said, trying to pull him off his arm. But he wasn’t letting go.

“Lucas,” both Dean and Andrea called to him as she came over to try and help get him off Dean’s arm.

“Lucas, it’s okay,” Dean said as Andrea pried him away. “It’s okay.” Still whimpering, Lucas allowed himself to be led out of the station by his mother. And all the time, Dean watched him with worry, not noticing Sam and Emma had followed Jake into his office. Tearing his gaze away, he followed too, taking a seat next to Emma as her and Sam was telling Jake the story, in their words.

@~~>~~~

“Okay, just so I’m clear,” Jake said in a very disbelieving tone once they had gone over the events. “You see… something attack Bill’s boat, sending Bill, who is a very good swimmer, by the way, into the drink, and you never see him again?”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Emma said once he had finished.

“And I’m supposed to believe this,” Jake carried on in the same tone. “Even though I’ve already sonar swept that entire lake, and what you’re describing is impossible, and you’re not really Wildlife Service?” At his last statement, all three looked up at him in surprise.

“That’s right, I checked. The department’s never heard of you three.”

“See, now we can explain that,” Dean said, opening his mouth like he was about to go into some big story.

“Enough please,” Jake said loudly, causing even Dean to shrink back slightly. “The only reason you’re breathing free air, is one of Bill’s neighbors saw him steering out that boat just before you did. So we have a couple of options here. I can arrest you for impersonating government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton’s disappearance. Or we can chalk this all up to a bad day, you get into your car, you put this town in your rearview mirror, and you don’t ever darken my doorstep again.”

“Door number two sounds good,” Sam said, not really able to go any lower in his chair and feeling like he really wanted to get out of this office soon.

“That’s the one I’d pick,” Jake said, his hard glare never leaving them three.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Lucas sat up in his bedroom, frantically colouring a black spiral. Wearing a robe, Andrea walked past his bedroom seeing him through the dark.

“Baby,” she said, walking into his room. “What are you doing up? Come on. Let’s go to bed.” And she picked him up, carrying him to his bed and leaving the drawings on the floor.

@~~>~~~

At the same time, on the outskirts of town, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up to traffic lights at the end of the freeway, heading out of town. They were heading to Milwaukee, the nearest state, which the sign above the lights told them was to the left.

And although Dean was driving, he seemed to be paying little attention to the road. There was so much on his mind about this case. That being the case, he didn’t notice the lights change colour.

“Green,” Emma told him, looking up at the lights.

“What?” Dean said, his attention pulled back to the car.

“Light’s green,” Emma repeated. And Dean pulled forward, turning right and heading back into town.

“Uh, the interstate’s the other way,” Emma said.

“I know,” Dean deadpanned. That wasn’t where he was planning on going.

@~~>~~~

Back at her house, having put Lucas to bed, Andrea made her way into the bathroom, ready for a soothing bath. Turning on the water, she put the plug into the tub and left it to run, turning her attention away from the water.

@~~>~~~

Back in the car, Sam, Dean and Emma were… expressing their opinions on what they thought about this case.

“But Dean, this job, I think it’s over,” Sam said, and Emma agreed.

“I’m not so sure,” Dean said.

“If Bill murdered Peter Sweeney and Peter’s spirit got its revenge, case closed. The spirit should be at rest.”

“All right, so what if we take off and this thing isn’t done. You know, what if we missed something? What if more people get hurt?”

“But why would you think that?”

“Because Lucas was really scared.”

“That’s what this is about?” Emma said, leaning forward slightly to turn to him.

“I just don’t want to leave town till I know the kid’s okay,” Dean said in answer.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my boyfriend?” Emma said, her and Sam staring at him opened mouthed. This was not the Dean they knew.

“Shut up,” Dean aid quietly. He knew this wasn’t like him, but he was just real worried about that kid. And for once in his life, it wasn’t because he was gonna get anything out of it. It was genuine worry. Maybe that was what had confused Sam and Emma. Honestly, it even confused him.

@~~>~~~

Back at Andrea’s house, with the water in the tub almost full, Andrea disrobed and slid under the water, leaving the tap to run over her feet. Leaning back and closing her eyes against the comfort of the water, Andrea failed to notice when the water that was pouring from the faucet turned brown, as it had done with Will Carlton.

While she lay there, washing and soaking up the heat of the water, a tiny whisper echoed round the bathroom. The echo of a small boy’s voice. Opening her eyes, Andrea noticed the colour of the water. Screaming, she tried to get out of the tub, throwing her legs over the side, but something pulled her back, keeping her in the water.

Over the splashing and Andrea’s screams, there is a pounding against the door. Lucas is stood outside, pounding against the wooden door, knowing all too well what is happening inside. And having no way to stop it.

Inside, the poundings are no longer important to Andrea as whatever is keeping her in the water pulls her head beneath the surface. She pulls back against it, but whatever it is is too strong. No matter how hard she fights, she can’t keep from going under the water again and again, trying her best to fight against this unseen force.

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma had now arrived back in town and were stood outside Andrea’s door.

“Are you sure about this?” Sam said. “It’s pretty late man.” Obviously not agreeing, Dean rang the doorbell. Before the sound had even got chance to ring out, the door flew open and Lucas was stood behind it, panting and clearly terrified of something.

“Lucas? Lucas!” Dean called, trying to calm him. No calmer, Lucas ran back into the house and to the bathroom the floor in front of it now covered in water.

“Lucas!” Dean called after him as he Sam and Emma followed him. They found Lucas still pounding on the door, desperate to get inside. As they reached him, Dean gently threw Lucas away and towards Emma, who he grabbed onto desperately. Kicking down the door, Sam, Dean and Emma were now meet by the sight of Andrea being drowned in her bathtub.

While Sam and Emma rushed into the bathroom, trying to pull Andrea out of the water, Lucas clung to Dean, Dean holding him back from running in after Sam and Emma.

Delving into the water and tugging at Andrea, Sam and Emma managed to pull her from under the water. But she had barely gasped for breath when her head was pushed under again. Sam and Emma continued to pull, eventually freeing her from the tub. The three rolled away from the bathtub, Emma landing near Dean’s feet while Sam still had a hold on Andrea, loosening his grip as she coughed up water.

@~~>~~~

The next morning and Andrea had got little sleep that night, still traumatised by what had almost happen to her, and still trying to work out how it had happened. She sat curled on a chair by the table with Sam and Emma, her eyes beginning to well up.

“Can you tell me?” Emma said, trying her best to be comforting.

“No. It doesn’t make any sense,” Andrea said as the tears began to fall. “I’m going crazy.”

“No, you’re not,” Emma said, shifting closer to her. “Tell me what happened, everything.”

“I heard… I thought I heard… there was this voice,” Andrea stammered out, still not sure of the events that had passed last night.

“What did it say?” Emma asked.

“It said….” Andrea paused, not wanting to think back but knowing she had to figure it all out. “It said ‘Come play with me.’ What’s happening?” Andrea finished, breaking down into her hands.

@~~>~~~

While Sam and Emma were comforting Andrea, Dean was in the other room flipping through old scrapbooks. He had now picked one up that said ‘Jake – 12 years old’. Flicking through the pages, his eyes widened as he stopped on one, racing back to Sam, Emma and Andrea. He laid the book down in front of Andrea, showing a picture of a Boy Scouts group.

“Do you recognize the kids in these pictures?” Dean said, pointing to the picture in question.

“What? Um… Um, no,” she said, glancing over the picture quickly then pointing to one of the boys. “I mean, except that’s my dad right there. He must have been about 12 in these pictures.” She moved her finger over to a different picture, one of her father with Peter Sweeney

“Chris Bar’s drowning,” Dean said, turning up to Sam and Emma. “The connection wasn’t to Bill Carlton. It must have been to sheriff.”

“Bill and the sheriff,” Emma concluded. “They were both involved with Peter.”

“What about Chris?” Andrea said, reminding them she was still there. “My dad… what are you talking about?” From the corner of his eye, Dean watched noticed Lucas walk into the room and stare out of the window.

“Lucas?” Dean said, causing the other to turn in that direction. “Lucas, what is it?” As an answer, Lucas opened the door and walked out, the other four following him.

“Lucas, honey?” Andrea called as they walked after him. He carried on walking, stopping by a section of ground. He looked down at it then looked up at Dean who had stopped beside him.

“You and Lucas get back to the house and stay there, okay?” Dean told Andrea. She did so, pulling Lucas away to the house.

@~~>~~~

Moments later and Sam and Dean are digging into the spot of ground Lucas had stopped at, Emma watching carefully beside them. Their spades hitting against something with a thud, Sam and Dean reached into the ground to pull out whatever they had hit, Emma moving closer beside them. It was a red bicycle.

“Peter’s bike,” Sam said.

“Who are you?” Jake’s voice echoed from behind the. Sam, Dean and Emma all turned to find him standing there with a gun aimed at them.

“Put the gun down, Jake,” Emma said, calmer than she felt.

“How did you know that was there?” Jake said, not lowering the weapon.

“What happened,” Dean said, not trying to stay calm at all. “You and Bill killed Peter, drowned him in the lake and then buried the bike? You can’t bury the truth, Jake. Nothing stays buried.”

@~~>~~~

From inside the house, Andrea looked out the window to find her father now stood in front of Sam, Dean and Emma, his gun aimed at them.

“Go to your room, sweetie,” she told Lucas. “Now. Lock the door and wait for me. Don’t come out.” Lucas obeyed, running to his room as Andrea ran outside.

@~~>~~~

Outside, Sam, Dean and Emma were still trying to get Jake to lower his gun and tell them what they needed to know.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Jake said once they had tried to explain their version of events to him.

“You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney 35 years ago,’ Dean repeated. “That’s what the hell I’m talking about.”

“Dad!” Andrea called as she ran up to them.

“And now you got one seriously pissed off spirit,” Dean continued.

“It’s gonna take Andrea, Lucas, everyone you love,” Sam said, being the rational one as usual. “It’s gonna drown them. And it’s gonna drag their bodies God knows where, so you can feel the same pain Peter’s mom felt. And then, after that, it’s gonna take you, and it’s not gonna stop until it does.”

“Yeah, and how do you know that?” Jake said, gun still aimed high.

“Because that’s exactly what it did to Bill Carlton,” Emma finished.

“Listen to yourselves, the three of you. You’re insane,” Jake said.

“I don’t really give a rat’s ass what you think of us,” Dean said, and he really didn’t. “But if we’re gonna bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them into dust. Now tell me you buried Peter somewhere. Tell me you didn’t just let him go in the lake.”

@~~>~~~

Back up at the house, Lucas was out of his bedroom, hiding round the side pf the house and listening to the conversation. And just like with Andrea, a voice whispered into the air. Peter’s voice.

“Come play with me,” the voice whispered again, and Lucas followed.

@~~>~~~

Back with the adult group, Andrea had now had chance to hear the whole story.

“Dad, is any of this true?” she asked.

“No. Don’t listen to them,” Jake said, never taking his eyes off Sam, Dean and Emma. “They’re liars and they’re dangerous.”

“Something tried to drown me. Chris died on that lake. Dad, look at me,” Andrea called, and he did. “Tell me you… you didn’t kill anyone.” Not able to lie to his daughter, Jake turned away, lowering the gun and breathing heavily.

“Oh my God,” Andrea whispered, clasping her hand over her mouth in shock.

“Billy and I were at the lake,” Jake said, beginning to re-tell the whole story. “Peter was the smallest one. We always bullied him, but this time… it got rough. We were holding his head under the water, we didn’t mean to. But we held him under too long and he drowned. We let the body go, and it sank. Oh Andrea, we were kids. We were so scared. It was a mistake. But, Andrea, to say that I have anything to do with these drownings, with Chris, because of some ghost… it’s not rational.”

“All right listen to me, all of you,” Dean said. “We need to get you away from this lake as far as we can right now.”

They were distracted as a gasped echoed from Andrea. They all turned in the direction her eyes had travelled to find Lucas heading down towards the dock.

“Lucas!” Jake called as the group ran to him. By the lake, Lucas knelt by the dock, reaching his hand towards the surface of the water, Peter’s voice still echoing out.

“Come play with me.”

“Lucas!” Dean called as they got closer.

“Lucas! Baby stay where you are!” Andrea called out. From under the water, a hand came up, pulling Lucas below the surface just as Sam, Dean, Emma, Andrea and Jake reached the edge of the water. Jake is the only one to stop, frozen in place as he sees Peter’s head just above the water surface, watching him before he dives back under.

Sam, Dean, Emma and Andrea continued running, Sam and Dean diving quickly into the water without slowing.

“Oh my God!” Andrea called in shock, pulling off her jacket and heading to the edge of the dock after Sam and Dean.

“Andrea, stay here,” Emma called, holding her back.

“No, Lucas!” Andrea screamed, struggling under Emma’s hold.

“They’ll get him just stay on the dock,” Emma said, keeping hold of Andrea as her struggles lessened. They stayed on the dock, watching as Sam dove under and Dean came up for breath. Moments later, Sam was up as well.

“Sam?” Dean called, asking. Sam shook his head.

“Lucas where are you,” Andrea called, tears in her eyes. As Sam and Dean dove back under the surface, Jake pulled off his jacket and waded into the lake.

“Peter,” Jake called over the water. “If you can here me. Please Peter, I’m sorry. I’m so… I’m so sorry.”

“Daddy, no,” Andrea screamed, falling to her knees as Emma kept a hold on her trying to comfort her.

“Peter,” Jake continued. “Lucas… he’s just a little boy. Please, it’s not his fault, it’s mine. Please take me.”

“Jake, no!” Dean called as he came up to the surface and saw the commotion above water. But Jake didn’t listen. He continued to shout as Pete swam up underneath him.

“Just let it be over!” he called. And it was as Peter dragged him under the surface.

“Daddy! Daddy! No!” Andrea screamed, utterly distraught. Sam and Dean dive under again, Sam surfacing shortly after and shaking his head to Andrea. Andrea continued to cry as Emma remained beside her to comforting, screaming across the water for her son.

As she cried, thinking she had now lost both her father and her son, Dean surfaced from the water, Lucas tight in his arms.

@~~>~~~

Dried off and ready to put this town behind them, Sam, Dean and Emma walked out of their motel room and to the car. Watching Dean as she walked beside him, Emma knew what Dean was thinking. It was written clearly across his face.

“Look, we’re not gonna save everybody,” she said as they stopped by the car.

“I know,” Dean replied, but the look on his face was still there.

“Sam, Dean, Emma,” Andrea’s voice called out to them as she and Lucas walked up to the three.

“Hey,” Dean said as they stopped in front of the car.

“We’re glad we caught you. We just um, we made you lunch for the road,” Andrea said, motioning to the tray in Lucas’ hands. “Lucas insisted on making the sandwiches himself.”

“Can I give it to them now?” Lucas spoke up softly. The group smiled, Andrea kissing Lucas gently on his forehead.

“Of course,” she replied.

“Come on Lucas; let’s load this into the car,” Dean said, guiding Lucas to the car and leaving Sam and Emma with Andrea.

“How you holding up?” Emma asked.

“It’s just gonna take a long time to sort through everything, you know?” Andrea said, emotion clear in her voice.

“Andrea, I’m sorry,” Emma said sympathetically.

“You guys saved my son,” Andrea said with a small smile. “I can’t ask for more than that. Dad loved me. He loved Lucas. No matter what he did, I just have to hold on to that.”

@~~>~~~

At the car, Dean loaded the sandwiches into the car and turned in his seat to face Lucas.

“All right, if you’re gonna be talking now, this is a very important phrase, so I want you to repeat it one more time,” Dean said with all sincerity.

“Zeppelin rules!” Lucas repeated.

“That’s right. Up high,” Dean said, holding up his hand which Lucas high fived.

“You take care of your mom, okay?” Dean said, standing out of the car.

“All right,” Lucas said as Sam, Emma and Andrea walked up to them. Leaning against the car door, Andrea leaned forward and quickly kissed Dean.

“Thank you,” she said as she pulled away. For a minute, Dean was little bemused from the kiss. But then again, the way woman changed their minds so often had always confused him.

“Sam, Emma, move your asses,” Dean said, turning away and moving to the drivers side. “We’re gonna run out of daylight before we hit the road.” Sam and Emma followed him into the car, the three of them smiling as Andrea and Lucas waved goodbye as they pulled away.

Driving away, the three drove in almost complete silence, the radio the only sound. As he drove, Dean watched Emma in the rear-view mirror. She was slouched against the seat, gazing distractedly out of the window.

“Emma, are you….” Dean began. He was distracted as she leaned forward, wrapping her arms loosely round Dean’s neck and smiling.

“Don’t even ask,” she said, kissing him as he turned slightly to look her way. “You don’t have to.”

Smiling, Dean turned back to the road, his free hand laced in Emma’s as she held her arms round his neck still. Watching them from the corner of his eyes, Sam smiled softly. He always wondered what kept his brother and his best friend together. At times, they could be too alike it was scary. But they still stuck by each other, and Sam didn’t really need to know why. He was just happy they did.

@~~>~~~

A good few hours later and they were still driving down the road. Dean was still driving, and Sam had drifted off to sleep half an hour ago. Emma was sat in the back, staring out the window as if deep in thought. Knowing she was still awake, Dean glanced at her through the rear-view mirror.

“Thank you,” Dean said simply, causing Emma to turn to him.

“What?” Emma asked, her attention knocked away from her thoughts.

“I said thank you,” Dean repeated.

“For what?”

“I don’t know, for just being here I guess.” Emma smiled softly before she answered.

“In that case, you’re welcome,” she said, turning her attention back to the window while Dean carried on watching her.

“I really do appreciate everything,” Dean continued, turning Emma’s focus back on him again.

“All the hunts I’ve dragged you along on,” Dean continued. “Everything I’ve put you through. You don’t have to be here. It’s not your fight. But I am so glad you stayed. And I really do appreciate everything.”

Emma smiled as she again leant forward and wrapped her arms round Dean, leaning against the back of the seat to look at him.

“Now, you see, you’ve got that so wrong Dean,” Emma said. “Because this is my fight. I’ve been with you, side by side, probably my entire life. Whatever you go through, I go through. And that’s the only way I want it. So it’ll be a long time before you need to apologise to me for bringing me with you. Probably never.”

Emma held her arms a little tighter round Dean, hugging him before she pulled away. Through the rear-view, they both smiled at each other once more before they turned back to their original positions, Dean on the road and Emma out the window.

Knowing he was no longer looking at her, Emma glanced back at Dean quickly, smiling. Whenever it came to emotional issues, Dean was so distant. It made him the truly amazing hunter that he was, but it also meant he lost touch with the people who cared about him. Not even her or Sam could get him to open up, the only people he ever considered family. So all the times when Dean did let his emotions out, one thought always flashed through Emma’s mind.

Maybe there’s hope for him yet.


	4. Phantom Traveller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> On TransNational flight 2485, a man possessed by the spirit of the Phantom Traveller causes the plane to crash, leaving only five survivors. Sam, Dean and Emma must exorcise the angry spirit before it attacks the survivors. They realize the only way to do that is to take the battle to the skies.

Untied Britannia Airlines. Pressed against the wall of the seating area is a beautiful scene of a tropical island, there to calm the passenger’s nerves, if needed. But this is not working for George Phelps, who is sat uncomfortably nervous in his chair.

Trying his best to calm his nerves at his total fear of flying, George goes into the bathroom, splashing cold water across his face at the sink. A toilet and another man walks from the cubicle, seeing the water dripping from George’s face and the look in his eyes.

“Nervous flier?” the guy asks.

“It’s that obvious, huh?” George says, trying to make light of the situation.

“You know, what are the odds of dyin’ in a plane crash?” the guy continues. “I mean, what, twenty thousand to one?” Smiling politely at George he left the restroom.

“Wow. That’s, uh, really reassuring. Thank you,” George called after sarcastically. Even more nervous now, George went back to splashing water across his face. With his head pointed down to the sink, George didn’t notice the black mist seeping out of the air vent. And when he did look up, it was too late. The mist swirled round his body, entering him through the eyes.

@~~>~~~

The United Britannia flight is now boarding. The pilot, Chuck Lambert, turned to the main area of the plane, watching as flight attendant Amanda Walker came into his view.

“Amanda, how are you today?” Chuck said cheerily.

“I’m doing just fine, Chuck,” Amanda said, turning as a passenger walked towards her, handing her his ticket.

“Welcome aboard. 15C, towards the back of the plane, on the right,” Amanda said with a smile. The passenger nodded, walking to his seat. The next passenger is George, walking past Amanda and towards his seat.

“Have a nice flight, sir,” Amanda said politely as he walked past. Stopping in the aisle, George turned to her, coal black eyes fixing on her with a wicked grin.

“Oh, I’m countin’ on it,” he said, turning and walking to his seat. Amanda stared after him in shock, her attention elsewhere as another passenger came onto the plane, handing her her ticket.

“Uh, 11F… that’s the middle of the plane, on….” Amanda said, her attention still not fully on the job at hand as the woman walked to her seat. “The left,” Amanda finished absent mindly, her mind still trying to figure what she had just witnessed.

@~~>~~~

The plane is now in the air. George, with normal eyes and no longer any sort of fear of flying, turns to the female passenger beside him.

“Excuse me. Do you know how long we’ve been up?” George asked.

“Oh, uh…. about forty minutes,” the woman replied, looking at her watch.

“Wow. Time really does fly, huh?” George joked. The woman smiled and nodded politely, turning away from him.

“Excuse me,” George said, standing from his seat. “I’ve got to stretch my legs.”

“Okay,” the woman said, standing to let him past. George got up, walking to the back of the plane and past another passenger, Max Jaffey, who was watching him carefully. Max watched as George walked to the back of the plane, looking round once before he grabbed the door handle.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Max called out. George turned to him, his eyes coal black again. And Max was frozen, shocked. Without a moments hesitation, George opened the emergency exit, him and the door flying out of the plane.

The plane suddenly lost control, plummeting down at an uncontrollable speed, no matter how hard Chuck and the co-pilot try to control it. In the main area, everyone is frantic. The over head lockers have opened and everything is flying about, papers, phones, everything else. Amanda struggles to her seat as the oxygen masks fall. Getting into her seat, Amanda and the passengers scramble for their oxygen masks as the plane continues to dive to the ground.

@~~>~~~

Out of town in a small motel room, Dean and Emma are asleep side by side. The door to their room opens a crack and Dean wakes slowly, shifting slightly and waking Emma. The door slams, startling Dean and Emma fully awake. They look up to see Sam walking in the room carrying coffee and donuts.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Sam said brightly, clearly having been awake for hours.

“What time is it?” Dean asked.

“It’s about 5:45,” Sam answered.

“In the morning?”

“Yep,” Sam replied.

“Where does the day go?” Emma said as she and Dean sat up in bed. “Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked Sam.

“Yeah, I grabbed a couple hours,” Sam said unconvincingly.

“Liar,” Dean said. “‘Cause I was up at three, and you were watchin’ the George Foreman infomercial.”

“Hey, what can I say? It’s riveting TV,” Sam said.

“When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know. A little while, I guess. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Look, I appreciate your concern….”

“Oh, I’m not concerned about you,” Emma cut in. “It’s both you guys job to keep my ass alive, so I need you sharp.” Sam shrugged, a small smile playing at his lips.

“Seriously, are you still havin’ nightmares about Jess?” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Sam said, sitting on the bed across from Dean and Emma, handing them both a coffee. “But it’s not just her. It’s everything. I just forgot, you know? This job… man, it gets to you.”

“Well, you can’t let it,” Dean said confidently. “You can’t bring it home like that.”

“So, what? All this, it never keeps you up at night?” Sam asked, to which Dean shook his head. “Never? You’re never afraid?”

“No, not really,” Dean said. Knowing better, Sam reached under Dean’s pillow and pulled out the knife that was hidden. Emma, clearly unaware of the fact that was there, turns to glare at Dean.

“That’s not fear,” Dean said, snatching the knife back. “That is precaution.”

“One I’d like to be aware of if I’m sleeping in the same bed as you,” Emma said, smacking his shoulder playfully, to which Dean smiled cockily at her.

“All right, whatever. I’m too tired to argue,” Sam said just as Dean’s cell phone rang. The three stared at it before they answered. There weren’t many people who had that number, who would be calling at this hour. Cautiously, Dean answered it.

“Hello?”

“Dean, it’s Jerry Panowski,” the voice on the other end said. The name rang no bells for Dean. “You and your dad helped me out a couple years back.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Dean said, the memories finally falling into place. “Up in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the poltergeist thing.” At the mention of a previous job, Emma, who had been listening to Dean’s end of the conversation with Sam, also clicked on who would be on the other end.

“It’s not back, is it?” Dean continued.

“No, no,” Jerry said. “Thank God, no. But it’s something else, and, well, I think it could be a lot worse.”

“What is it?” Dean asked.

“Can we talk in person?” Jerry asked in return, not to eager to discuss this over the phone from his office.

@~~>~~~

Not too long later, Sam, Dean and Emma arrived at Jerry’s workplace, a construction site for old or broke down airplanes. Jerry was guiding the three through the warehouse, talking about what his earlier phone call had been about.

“Thanks for makin’ the trip so quick,” Jerry said. “I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around. Dean, Emma and your dad really helped me out,” he said, turning to Sam.

“Yeah, they told me. It was a poltergeist?” Sam said, a passing employee overhearing them.

“ ‘Poltergeist’? Man, I loved that movie!” the employee piped up.

“Hey, nobody’s talkin’ to you. Keep walkin’,” he said to his employee before turning back to Sam. “Damn right, it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart.” Jerry this time turned to Dean and Emma.

“I’ll tell you somethin’, if it wasn’t for you guys and your dad, I probably wouldn’t be alive.” His attention again flicked to Sam.

“Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?”

“Yeah, I was,” Sam said. “I’m… takin’ some time off.”

“Well, he was real proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time.”

“He did?” Sam said, glancing over at Dean and Emma who were smiling his way.

“Yeah, you bet he did. Oh, hey, you know, I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn’t. How’s he doing, anyway?”

“He’s, um… he’s wrapped up in a job right now,” Dean said, not willing to go into out of the family right now.

“Well, we’re missin’ the old man. We get Sam. Even trade, huh?” Jerry said, and the four of them laughed slightly.

“No, not by a long shot,” Sam said.

“I’ve got somethin’ I want you guys to hear,” Jerry said, guiding them into his office. While Sam, Dean and Emma sat ion the three chairs across from his desk, Jerry sat at his computer, playing a CD into the player.

“I listened to this,” Jerry said as he turned back to the trio. “Well, it sounded like it was up your alley. Normally, I wouldn’t have access to this. It’s the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia Flight 2485. It was one of ours.”

He hit the play button and the CD kicked in. over all the static and other sounds coming from the recording, they could just manage to hear the sound of voices.

“Mayday. Mayday,” Chuck’s panicked voice rang out. “Repeat. This is United Britannia flight 2485 requesting immediate instructions and help.”

“United Britannia flight 2485, we copy your mayday,” a calmer man replied.

“We may be experiencing some kind of mechanical failure….” Chuck continued, but his voice was suddenly taken over by a demonic sounding hissing and an even more demonic sounding growl. At this point, the CD stopped and Sam, Dean and Emma exchanged a confused look.

“Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south,” Jerry told them. “Now, they’re saying mechanical failure. The cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board, only seven got out alive. The pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He’s a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh… well, he’s pretty broken up about it, like it was his fault.”

“You don’t think it was?” Emma said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Jerry, we’re gonna need passenger manifests, a list of survivors….” Sam began, counting off on his fingers.

“Right. And any way we can take a look at the wreckage?” Dean cut in.

“The other stuff is no problem, but the wreckage… fellas, the NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I’ve got that kind of clearance.

“No problem,” Dean said, shrugging. Emma looked over at him, knowing all too well he was up to something.

@~~>~~~

Having already been sat outside the Copy Jack for quite some time now, Sam and Emma were getting a little bored of waiting for him. Just as one of them were about to go in looking for him, he walked out oh so casually.

“You’ve been in there forever,” Sam said as he walked up to them.

“You can’t rush perfection,” Dean said, holding up three fake ID’s.

“Homeland Security?” Sam said as he and Emma took theirs.

“That’s pretty illegal, even for us,” Emma said as they moved to sit in the car.

“Yeah, well, it’s somethin’ new, you know? People haven’t seen it a thousand times,” Dean said as the three climbed into the car, Dean and Emma in the front while Sam climbed into the backseat.

“All right, so, what do you got?” Dean asked.

“Well, there’s definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder,” Emma said as she opened her laptop.

“Yeah?” Dean said.

“Listen,” she said as she played an audio recording from the laptop. After a minute of static, a clear voice came through, creepily uttering two words.

“No survivors.”

“ ‘No survivors’?” Dean questioned as Emma stopped the recording. “What’s that supposed to mean? There were seven survivors.”

“Got me,” she said.

“So, what are you thinkin’? A haunted flight?” Dean asked.

“There’s a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships, like phantom travellers,” Sam said.

“Mm-hmm,” Dean said in agreement.

“Or, remember Flight 401?” Emma said.

“Right, the one that crashed,” Dean began. “Then the airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, then the spirit of the pilot and co-pilot haunted those flights.”

“Right,” Emma answered.

“Yep,” Dean replied.

“Maybe we’ve got a similar deal,” Emma suggested.

“All right, so, survivors,” Dean said, holding up the list. “Which one do you wanna talk to first?”

“Third on the list, Max Jaffey,” Sam said, pointing at his name.

“Why him?” Dean asked.

“Well, for one, he’s from around here. And two, if anyone saw anything weird, he did.”

“What makes you say that?” Dean asked.

“Well, I spoke to his mother, and she told me where to find him.”

@~~>~~~

And where Max was was Riverfront Psychiatric Hospital. Sam, Dean and Emma had blagged their ways in and were walking through the gardens outside the building with Max, him walking with a slight limp in his step.

“I don’t understand,” he said as he continued to walk behind them. “I already spoke with Homeland Security.”

“Right,” Emma answered. “Some new information has come up. So if you could just answer a couple questions….”

“Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything unusual?” Sam asked.

“Like what?” Max questioned.

“Strange lights, weird noises, maybe… voices?” Dean put in.

“No, nothing,” Max said, but it wasn’t all that convincing.

“Hmm. Mr. Joffey….”

“Jaffey,” Max corrected Dean.

“Jaffey. You checked yourself in here, right?” Dean continued. Max nodded. “Can I ask why?”

“I was a little stressed,” Max said in the same unconvincing tone. “I survived a plane crash.”

“Uh-huh. And that’s what terrified you? That’s what you were afraid of?” Dean said.

“I… I don’t wanna talk about this anymore,” Max said.

“See, I think maybe you did see somethin’ up there. We need to know what.”

“No. No, I was delusional, seeing things.,” Max said.

“He was seeing things,” Dean repeated to Sam and Emma, and both could tell this kid was getting on his nerves already. Emma shrugged at him, thinking that after what Dean had been saying, she had a better chance of getting something out of him.

“It’s okay,” Emma said, trying to be more comforting that Dean. “Then just tell us what you thought you saw, please.”

“There was… this… man,” Max finally fessed up. “And, uh, he had these… eyes, these, uh… black eyes. And I saw him… or I thought I saw him….”

“What?” Emma questioned.

“He opened the emergency exit. But that’s… that’s impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There’s somethin’ like two tons of pressure on that door.” And yeah. All three of them knew that was physically impossible… for a human.

“This man,” Sam began. “Did he seem to appear and disappear rapidly? It wouldn’t look something like a mirage?”

“What are you, nuts?” Max said. “He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me.” The trio exchanged a look. Ok, this guy was human.

@~~>~~~

Not too long later, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up to what they bhad found out was George Phelps house4.

“Here we are, George Phelps, seat 20C,” Sam said as they pulled up.

“Hmm. Man, I don’t care how strong you are,” Dean said as the three got out of the car. “Even yoked up on PCP or somethin’, no way you can open up an emergency door during a flight.”

“Not if you’re human,” Sam stated. “But maybe this guy, George, was somethin’ else, a creature maybe, in human form?”

“That look like a creature’s lair to you?” Emma said as she gestured towards the very normal looking suburban house that was George Phelps address.

@~~>~~~

The trio were now in the supposed ‘creatures lair’, speaking to the later George Phelps’ wife. Sam picked up a photo of what he assumed was George, making a conversation starter with his wife.

“This is your late husband?” Sam said.

“Yes, that was my George,” Mrs Phelps replied.

“And you said he was a… dentist?” Dean said somewhat sceptically.

“Mm-hmm,” she answered. “He was headed to a convention in Denver. Do you know that he was petrified to fly? For him to go like that….” Her voice trailed off as the tears began to come, which is when the more sensitive of the trio came into play.

“How long were you married?” Emma asked, getting a smile from Mrs Phelps at her memories of her husband.

“Thirteen years,” she said.

“In all that time, did you ever notice anything… strange about him,” Emma asked. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

“Well… uh, he had acid reflux, if that’s what you mean,” Mrs Phelps told them. The three exchanged a look. Not exactly the something strange they had expected.

@~~>~~~

Getting all the information they could out of Mrs Phelps, Sam, Dean and Emma left to find a new way to find more.

“I mean, it goes without saying,” Sam said as they left. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, a middle-aged dentist with an ulcer is not exactly evil personified,” Dean said. “You know, what we need to do is get inside that NTSB warehouse, check out the wreckage.”

“Okay. But if we’re gonna go that route, you better look the part,” Emma told the boys.

@~~>~~~

And looking the part meant putting the boys in suits. The two walked out of Mort’s For Style, both dressed in very business looking suits.

“Man, I look like one of the Blues Brothers,” Dean moaned.

“No, you don’t. You look more like a seventh grader at his first dance,” Sam corrected.

“I hate this thing,” Dean said, glaring at his brother.

“Hey, you want into that warehouse or not?” Sam said. Dean said nothing, which was enough of an answer for his brother. The two walked back to the car where Emma was standing, also not liking this idea. Although she had suggested it, she hadn’t expected they would force her to dress up like this too. She stood, pulling awkwardly at her jacket.

“I said you better look the part, not me. I don’t see why I have to wear this stuff too,” Emma said as they walked up to her.

“Because you’re our ticket in,” Dean explained with a smile on his face. If he was dressing up like this, he was sure as hell gonna make sure Emma was doing the same. She had wanted them to do this.

“Meaning?” Emma asked.

“You’ll see,” Sam said, the smile on his face matching Dean’s. “Come on,” he said as the three climb into the Impala and drove off.

@~~>~~~

Emma found out exactly what they meant when they reached the NTBS warehouse. They had gone in, shoving her in the front. The three had shown their fake badges, Emma playing along and smiling brightly, but the guard’s attention had been solely on Emma.

Smiling back at Emma, the guards motioned for them to go inside, keeping their eyes glued on Emma as she walked away, Sam and Dean following and trying to hide their smiles.

@~~>~~~

Having blagged their way into the warehouse, the trio were now looking round for anything that might help them with their case.

“This is just great!” Emma said. “I have a boyfriend and a best friend who think it’s fun to use me as eye candy for pervy guards to get them into places.”

“That’s just cos you do it so well, sweetie,” Dean replied with a smile. Emma turned to her boyfriend, ready to aim a slap across the back of his head. But Dean had seen it coming and ducked before it could hit. He straightened up, smiling at his girlfriend, and took out some electronic device, sticking the headphones in his ears.

“What is that?” Sam asked.

“It’s an EMF meter, reads electromagnetic frequencies,” Dean stated off-handily.

“Yeah, I know what an EMF meter is, but why does that one look like a busted-up Walkman?” Sam said.

“‘Cause that’s what I made it out of. It’s homemade,” Dean said with a proud smile.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Sam said, knocking the smile off Dean’s lip. While a hurt Dean turned to carry on searching, Sam caught Emma’s eyes and both had to hide their laughter.

The trio continued searching round the warehouse, Emma catching up to Dean and walking beside him. After a minute, she turned and smacked Dean across the head, to sudden for him to duck this time.

“What was that for?” Dean asked, massaging the back of his head.

“I missed before,” Emma replied with a smile as the search continued. Reaching the exit door, Dean stopped as the EMF meter began beeping rapidly in his ears.

“Check out the emergency door handle,” Deans said as Sam walked over to them. There was some kind of yellowish substance on it.

“What is this stuff?” he asked as he, being Dean and doing without thinking, wiped some off onto his hand.

“One way to find out,” Emma replied, taking the logically option and choosing to scrape some off with a knife into a plastic bag. Looking at the yellow smear on his fingers, Dean shrugged and wiped it off onto the nearest object, which was the back of Emma’s jacket. She simply glared at him as she continued putting the substance into the bag.

@~~>~~~

Outside of the warehouse at the guards station, two real life Homeland Security officers approach the desk, showing their badges.

“Homeland Security?” the security guard questioned as he looked at their badges. “What, one team of you guys isn’t enough?”

“What are you talkin’ about?” one of the Homeland Security officers asked.

“Three of your buddies went inside not five minutes ago,” the guard answered. The Homeland Security officers exchanged a look. They hadn’t sent any other team. And Sam, Dean and Emma are busted.

@~~>~~~

A few moments later, the two Homeland security officers as well as the three security guards rush into the warehouse, ready to apprehend the fakes. But Sam, Dean and Emma are already gone.

@~~>~~~

The trio are outside of the warehouse having exited through the back of the building, walking calmly towards the car. Their calm walk turns into a run as alarms blare around them, and they know what for. Finding it somewhat difficult to run in heels, like any woman would, Emma pulled them off as she ran, following the boys as they began climbing over a fence. Throwing his suit jacket over the fence, Dean hit the ground first, turning and catching the shoes that had been thrown his way by Emma.

“Huh. These monkey suits do come in handy,” Dean said as Sam and Emma dropped beside him. Grabbing his own jacket, Dean threw the shoes back at Emma as the three ran back to the car.

@~~>~~~

At a small airport, Chuck Lambert sat nervously in the waiting area, his co-pilot from flight 2485 sat beside him.

“Listen, Chuck,” the co-pilot said to him. “It’s like gettin’ back on a horse, only in this case, a little twin engine. Not even a horse, more like a pony. And I’m gonna be right there with you, too. Anytime you feel like you don’t want the wheel, I’ll take over.” Chuck didn’t answer. He just nodded.

“Look, Chuck, we don’t have to do this today. I’m not tryin’ to rush you.”

“No, the… the waiting is worse,” Chuck told him. Turning to check on the plane they would be flying, the co-pilot watched the engi9neers making checks on the plane.

“Okay, they’re fillin’ up the tank. Then we go,” the co-pilot said, getting up and walking off. Feeling ever more nervous and what he was about to do, Chuck closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. With his gaze turned away, the black mist from the first plane crash that had possessed the now deceased George Phelps slithered out of the air vent. While Chuck has his eyes down, the mist made it way to him and weaved round his body, entering him like it had with George.

@~~>~~~

Back at Jerry’s office, Sam, Dean and Emma watch as Jerry investigates the substance they brought back with them.

“Huh,” Jerry said as he looked up. “This stuff is covered in sulfur.”

“You’re sure?” Sam asked, thinking he knows just what that means.

“Take a look for yourself,” Jerry said, the sound of shouting employees in the hallway heard over his voice. “If you guys will excuse me, I have an idiot to fire,” Jerry continued as he walked out of the room, shouting out at his employees.

“Hey, Einstein. Yeah, you. What the heck are you doing? Put the wrench down.” Letting Jerry leave and continue his yelling, Emma took his place at the microscope, looking into the lens.

“Hmm. You know, there’s not too many things that leave behind a sulfuric residue,” she said as she pulled up.

“Demonic possession?” Sam questioned, although the answer was clear.

“It would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open up an emergency hatch,” Emma answers.

“If the guy was possessed, it’s possible.”

“Yeah, but this goes way beyond floatin’ over a bed or barfin’ pea soup,” Dean, Mr Look-For-Anything-But-The-Obvious-Answer, pipes up. “I mean, it’s one thing to possess a person, but to use ‘em to take down an entire airplane?”

“You ever heard of somethin’ like this before?” Sam asked the two in front of him.

“Never,” Dean answered as Emma shook her head.

@~~>~~~

Back at the airport, Chuck’s co-pilot is stood beside the plane waiting for him. The possessed Chuck, now somewhat more cheerful, comes up to him with a wide smile on his face.

“I’m ready. Let’s do this,” he said cheerfully as he walked towards the plane. Laughing slightly, the co-pilot followed him.

@~~>~~~

Almost an hour later and the pair are still up in the small plane.

“How you feelin’?” the co-pilot asks Chuck.

“I feel great,” Chuck replies with a smile.

“You’ll be back flyin’ jumbos before you know it.”

“I hope so. How long we been up?” Chucks asks, the copilot checking his watch.

“Almost forty minutes.”

“Wow. Time really does fly.” The co-pilot simply shrugs and smile slightly at Chucks awful attempt at humour. Out of nowhere, Chuck suddenly pushes heavily on the controls and sends the plane hurtling towards the ground.

“What are you doing?!” the co-pilot screams as he tries to take control of the plane. Chuck, his eyes now a deep coal black, turns on his co-pilot and friend, knocking him out. With no one to stop him, the demon inside Chuck continues to send the plane hurtling towards the ground.

@~~>~~~

Back at their motel, the trio are researching this demon, searching for any signs this thing might have struck before. Sam sat at his laptop while Dean and Emma lay sprawled across separate beds.

“So, every religion in every world culture has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right?” Sam said, pulling Dean and Emma’s attention back to him as the pair sit up. “I mean, Christian, Native American, Hindu, you name it.”

“Yeah, but none of ‘em describe anything like this,” Emma states.

“Well, that’s not exactly true. See, according to Japanese beliefs, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made. One causes earthquakes, another causes disease.”

“And this one causes plane crashes?” Emma asked somewhat sceptically. Sam simply shrugged.

“All right, so, what?” Dean added in, climbing off the bed. “We've got a demon that’s evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?”

“Yeah. You know, who knows how many planes it’s brought down before this one?” Sam said. Thinking on this and every other piece of information flashing through his brain, Dean turned his back on his little brother and girlfriend, scratching his head.

“What?” Sam and Emma asked in unison, their worry for him and the case showing in their voices.

“I don’t know, man. This isn’t our normal gig,” Dean said, turning back to them. “I mean, demons, they don’t want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. This is big. You know, I wish Dad was here.”

“Yeah. Me, too,” Sam and Emma said, glancing sadly at Dean then at each other. Breaking the moment, Dean’s cell phone began ringing, and Dean pulled it from his pocket to answer it.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Dean, it’s Jerry,” Jerry’s voice echoed from the other end, his words full of emotion.

“Oh, hey, Jerry,” Dean said.

“My pilot friend, Chuck Lambert, is dead,” Jerry told him.

“Jerry, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“He and his buddy went up in a small twin about an hour ago. The plane went down.”

“Where’d this happen?”

“About sixty miles west of here, near Nazareth.”

“I’ll try to ignore the irony in that,” Dean said, his mind now replaying the information Sam had just given them.

“I’m sorry?” Jerry asked.

“Nothin’. Jerry, hang in there, all right? We’ll catch up with you soon,” Dean said as he hung up.

“Another crash?” Sam asked once the call had ended.

“Yeah. Let’s go,” Dean said, grabbing his jacket.

“Where?” Emma asked.

“Nazareth,” Dean stated simply. Both Sam and Emma smiled half-heartedly at him, them also seeing the irony in this all.

@~~>~~~

After speeding down to the wreckage before the NTBS could lock it up in another warehouse, Sam, Dean and Emma made their way back to Jerry with yet more sulphur covered items from the wreckage.

“Sulfur?” Dean asked as Jerry pulled out from the microscope. He nodded.

“Well, that’s great,” Dean said, turning to Sam and Emma who were sat behind the computer. “All right, so, that’s two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him.”

“With all due respect to Chuck, um… if that’s the case, that would be the good news,” Emma told them.

“What’s the bad news?” Dean asked.

“Chuck’s plane went down exactly forty minutes into flight,” Emma told him. “And get this, so did Flight 2485.”

“Forty minutes? What does that mean?” Jerry asked.

“It’s biblical numerology,” Sam said. “On Noah’s Ark, it rained for forty days. The number means death.”

“I went back,” Emma continued. “And there have been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly forty minutes in.”

“Any survivors?” Dean asked.

“No. Or not until now, at least, not until Flight 2485, for some reason.”

“On the cockpit voice recorder,” Sam cut in. “Remember what the EVP said?”

“ ‘No survivors’,” Dean said, to which Sam nodded. “It’s goin’ after all the survivors. It’s tryin’ to finish the job,” Dean finished dramatically.

@~~>~~~

Now having a more clearer idea of what this demon wanted, the three where in the car, taking off to find it. Emma sat in the front beside Dean, her cell phone pressed against her ear.

“Really?” Emma said into the phone in an over the top friendly manner. “Well, thank you for taking our survey, and if you do plan to fly, please don’t forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines. Thank you,” she said as she hung up.

“All right,” she said, shifting in her chair to speak to both brothers. “That takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway. They’re not flyin’ anytime soon.”

“So, our only wildcard is the flight attendant, Amanda Walker,” Dean said.

“Right,” Emma said. “Her sister, Karen, said her flight leaves Indianapolis at 8 PM. It’s her first night back on the job.”

“That sounds like just our luck,” Dean said.

“Dean, this is a five-hour drive, man,” Sam informed them. “Even with you behind the wheel.”

“Why don’t you call Amanda’s cell phone again,” Dean said to Emma. “See if we can’t head her off at the pass.”

“I’ve already left her three voice messages,” Emma said. “She must have turned her cell phone off.”

“God, we’re never gonna make it,” Sam said defeatedly.

“Oh, we’ll make it,” Dean said, stepping on the gas and speeding faster down the road.

@~~>~~~

They just about managed to make it, rushing into the airport and over to the flight schedule screens.

“Right there,” Sam said, pointing up at the screen. “They’re boarding in thirty minutes.

“Okay. We still have some cards to play. We need to find a phone,” Dean said as he moved over to a courtesy phone on the wall beside them.

“Hi. Gate 13,” Dean said to the operator on the other side. “I’m trying to contact an Amanda Walker. She’s a flight attendant on Flight, um….”

“424,” Emma whispered.

“Flight 424,” Dean repeated, waiting for Amanda to pick up.

@~~>~~~

In another area of the airport, the operators voice rang over the intercom.

“Amanda Walker, Amanda Walker. You have a phone call at the white courtesy phone, Gate 13.”

At her gate, Amanda walked up the courtesy phone, just ready to board the plane.

“Come on….” Dean whispered into his side just as Amanda picked up.

“This is Amanda Walker,” she said into the phone.

“Miss Walker,” Dean continued into the phone. “Hi, this is Dr. James Headfield from St. Francis Memorial Hospital. We have a Karen Walker here.”

“Karen?” Amanda said, suddenly worried.

“Nothing serious, just a minor car accident. But she was injured, so….”

“Wait, that’s impossible,” Amanda said, cutting Dean off. “I just got off the phone with her.”

“You what?” Dean said, his story suddenly not working.

“Five minutes ago. She’s at her house, cramming for a final. Who is this?”

“Uh, well… there must be some mistake,” Dean said, suddenly lost for what to do next.

“And how would you even know I was here?” Amanda said as she paused to think. “Is this one of Vince’s friends?”

“Guilty as charged,” Dean said, chuckling as he picked up on this new cover story.

“Wow. This is unbelievable.”

“He’s really sorry.”

“Well, you tell him to mind his own business and stay out of my life, okay?”

“Yes, but he really needs to see you tonight, so….”

“No,” Amanda cut him off sharply. “I’m sorry. It’s too late.”

“Don’t be like that,” Dean said, trying to keep her on the line and off the plane. “Come on, the guy’s a mess, really… it’s pathetic.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Look, I’ve gotta go. Tell him to call me when I land.”

“No, no, wait, Amanda,” Dean said as Amanda put the phone down, leaving Dean to shout her name into an unoccupied phone.

Leaving the phone call behind her, Amanda made to board the plane. She walked into the plane, passing under a vent through the platform. A vent from which the black mist seeped out before disappearing quickly back inside.

@~~>~~~

Back at the entrance to the airport, Dean is suddenly out of ideas.

“Damn it! So close,” he said, pacing around the airport.

“All right, it’s time for Plan B,” Sam said, his own plan forming. “We’re getting on that plane.”

“Now, just hold on a second,” Dean said, definitely not liking this plan.

“Dean, that plane is leaving with over a hundred passengers on board,” Sam told his brother. “And if we’re right, that plane is gonna crash.”

“I know!” Dean said, quite agitated, and Emma suddenly figured just what the problem was.

“We’re getting on the plane, we need to find that demon, and exorcise it. Look, I’ll get the tickets. You just go and get whatever you can out of the trunk, whatever will make it through security. Meet me back here in five minutes,” Sam said, but Dean didn’t move.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked.

“No, not really,” Dean answered truthfully.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh…” he sighed, trailing off.

“Flying,” Emma finished for him.

“Flying?” Sam questioned.

“It’s never really been an issue until now,” Dean told him.

“You’re joking, right?” Sam said. Here it was finally. Something his brother was scared of.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Dean said, and it was clear he wasn’t. “Why do you think I drive everywhere, Sam?”

“All right. Uh, we’ll go,” Emma suggested, knowing just how much her boyfriend hated flying.

“What?” Dean said.

“We’ll do this one on our own.”

“What are you, nuts?” Dean said. “You said it yourself, the plane’s gonna crash.”

“Look, Dean, the three of us can do it together, or me and Sam can do this one ourselves. I’m not seeing a third option here,” Emma said, making out like she was just helping Dean, but really trying to get him on the flight with him. If Dean knew lives were in danger, and that two of those lives were Sam and Emma, he’d go with them.

“Come on! Really?” Dean said, sighing in a defeated manner as it began to work. “Man.”

@~~>~~~

A short while later and Sam and Emma had got the reluctant Dean onto the plane. He was sat rigid in his seat as the plane rumbles and shakes as it prepares to take off, Emma hand clasped tightly in his.

“Just try to relax,” Emma said, trying to be comforting.

“Just try to shut up,” Dean said back through gritted teeth. Sam and Emma laughed slightly as the plane began to take off. His panic really setting in, Dean tightened both his seatbelt and his hold on Emma’s hand as he leaned back against the seat. He really began to panic as the plane took off, the natural whirrings of the plane seeming louder to his ears.

@~~>~~~

The plane was now up in the air and Dean’s panic hadn’t ceased. He was sat in almost exactly the same position, humming gently as Emma leaned in to try and listen.

“Are you humming Metallica?” she asked.

“It calms me down,” Dean stated simply.

“Look, baby, I get you’re nervous, all right?” Emma said. “But you’ve got to stay focused.”

“Okay, Dean said, but his voice said there was only one thing he was focused on, and it wasn’t the demon.

“We’ve got thirty-two minutes and counting to track this thing down, or whoever it’s possessing, anyway, and perform a full-on exorcism,” Sam reminded them.

“Yeah, on a crowded plane, that’s gonna be easy.” Dean said sarcastically.

“Just take it one step at a time, all right? Now, who is it possessing?”

“Well, it’s usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know,” Dean spieled off. “A chink in the armor that the demon can worm through, somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress.”

“Well, this is Amanda’s first flight after the crash,” Sam said. “If I were her, I’d be pretty messed up.”

“Mm-hmm,” Dean said as a flight attendant walked past them. “Excuse me. Are you Amanda?” he asked her.

“No, I’m not,” she answered.

“Oh, my mistake,” Dean said with a polite smile.

“Mm-hmm,” the flight attendant mumbled as she walked away. Looking for any other flight attendants, Dean turned to see Amanda stood at the back of the plane by the restrooms.

“All right, well, that’s got to be Amanda back there,” Dean said as he turned back to Sam and Emma, and they turned to see Amanda. “So… I’ll go talk to her and, uh, I’ll get a read on her mental state.”

“What if she’s already possessed?” Sam asked.

“There’s ways to test that,” Dean said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of water. “I brought holy water.”

“No, I think we can go more subtle,” Emma said, snatching the bottle from him. “If she’s possessed, she’ll flinch at the name of God.”

“Oh. Nice,” Dean said as he stood to walk away.

“Hey,” Emma called back to him.

“What?”

“Say it in Latin.”

“I know,” he said, beginning to walk away.

“Hey!” Emma called him back again.

“What?!”

“In Latin, it’s ‘Cristo’.”

“Babe, I know, I’m not an idiot!” he said, this time finally walking away. Making his way to Amanda, the plane hits turbulence and begins to jolt. Dean quickly grabbed a hold of the nearest chair, pausing until the plane steadied itself. Gritting his teeth, he thudded the back of the chair as he again made his way to the back of the plane.

@~~>~~~

At the back of the plane, Amanda was setting up glasses on the drinks cart when Dean walked up to her.

“Hi,” he said, real friendly like.

“Hi. Can I help you with something?” Amanda asked.

“Oh, no. I’m just a bit of an uneasy flier. It makes me feel better to walk around a little bit.” And that really wasn’t too far from the truth.

“Oh, it happens to the best of us.”

“Of course, you being a stewardess, I guess flying comes easy to you,” Dean said, keeping the conversation going.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Amanda said with a small laugh.

“Really? You’re a nervous flier?”

“Yeah, maybe, a little bit.”

“How is it that, being a stewardess, you’re scared to fly?”

“Kind of a long story,” she replied, and Dean could tell she meant Flight 2485.

“Right. Sorry for asking,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

“You ever consider other employment?”

“No. Look, everybody’s scared of something. I just, uh… I’m not gonna let it hold me back.”

“Huh,” Dean said.

“So….” And the conversation began to turn dry.

“Cristo,” Dean muttered under his breath.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Amanda said.

“Cristo?” Dean repeated a little louder, laughing nervously.

“I… I didn’t… I didn’t…. What?”

“Nothing. Never mind,” Dean said, walking back to his seat and leaving a very confused Amanda.

“Okay,” she said to herself as she watched him walk away.

@~~>~~~

Dean quickly went back to Sam and Emma, slumping down into his seat.

“All right, well, she’s got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet,” he mutter almost angrily as he sat.

“You said ‘Cristo’?” Emma asked.

“Yeah.”

“And?” Sam continued.

“There’s no demon in her. There’s no demon getting in her.”

“So, if it’s on the plane, it can be anyone… anywhere,” Sam finished, just as the plane began to rumble and shake almost violently.

“Come on! That can’t be normal!” Dean called, gripping tighter to the chair arms.

“Hey, hey, it’s just a little turbulence,” Emma said comfortingly.

“Emma, this plane is going to crash, okay? So quit treatin’ me like I’m friggin’ four!” Dean said, turning to her as the plane steadied itself.

“You need to calm down,” Emma reiterated.

“Well, I’m sorry, I can’t!” Dean stated.

“Yes, you can.”

“Babe, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap, it’s not helping!”

“Listen, if you’re panicked, you’re wide open to demonic possession, so you need to calm yourself down right now,” Emma reminded Dean. Knowing she was right, Dean paused before letting out a slow and hopefully calming breath. “Good,” Emma said with a small smile.

“Now, I found an exorcism in here that I think is gonna work,” Sam said, opening his father’s journal. “The ritual Romano.”

“What do we have to do?” Dean asked.

“It’s two parts. The first part expels the demon from the victim’s body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful.”

“More powerful?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Well, it doesn’t need to possess someone anymore. It can just wreak havoc on its own.”

“Oh, and why is that a good thing?” Dean asked, shocked at how Sam would think that would help at all.

“Well, because the second part sends the bastard back to hell,” Emma finished. “Once and for all.”

“First thing’s first,” Dean said. “We’ve got to find it.”

@~~>~~~

Trying to find the demon or who it was possessing, Dean walked up and down the aircraft, his home-made EMF meter in hand and the headphones in his ears. He passes by all the passengers, waving the EMF meter from side to side and trying to look calm and normal. And despite this, he still receives a lot of strange looks from the passengers as he walks past. But not one of them seem to be possessed.

Stopping at the end of the plane, Dean jumps as Sam and Emma step up behind him, Emma grabbing him round the waist.

“Oh! Don’t do that!” Dean said, turning and realising it is in fact only his girlfriend and brother.

“Anything?” Emma said, a smile on her face as she relished in the fact that she could actually scare the unshockable older Winchester for once.

“No, nothin’. How much time we got?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Sam said as he checked his watch. “Maybe we missed somebody.”

“Maybe the thing’s just not on the plane,” Dean said hopefully.

“You believe that?” Emma asked.

“Well, I will if you will.” Sam and Emma simply gave Dean a knowing look. After everything, there was no way this thing wasn’t on the plane, and they knew that.

All of a sudden, the EMF meter began to beep frantically in Dean’s ears. Looking up, Dean watched the co-pilot come out of the restroom, smiling at them.

“What?” Sam said as he noticed Dean starring. “What is it?”

“Cristo,” Dean muttered. And as he was walking back into the cockpit, the co-pilot shuddered, turning coal black eyes onto them. All Sam, Dean and Emma can do is stare in awe as the co-pilot went back into the cockpit. They knew for sure that this thing was on the plane, and just who it was in.

@~~>~~~

Knowing exactly who the demon was inside, Sam, Dean and Emma made their way to the opposite end of the plane, heading for the only person who had a slight chance of believing them.

“She’s not gonna believe this,” Sam said.

“Twelve minutes, dude,” Dean reminded them as the three stepped behind the curtain where Amanda was standing.

“Oh, hi. Flight’s not too bumpy for you, I hope,” Amanda said, noticing Dean.

“Actually, that’s kind of what we need to talk to you about,” Dean said as Sam closed the curtain behind them.

“Um, okay. What can I do for you?” Amanda asked.

“All right, this is gonna sound nuts, but we just don’t have time for the whole ‘The truth is out there’ speech right now,” Dean started off.

“All right, look,” Emma said, pushing her way in front of Dean and cutting him off. “We know you were on Flight 2485.”

“Who are you guys?” Amanda said, fairly shocked.

“We’ve spoken to some of the other survivors,” Emma carried on, ignoring her question. “We know something brought down that plane, and it wasn’t mechanical failure.”

“And we need your help because we need to stop it from happening again, here, now,” Dean finished.

“I… I’m sorry, I’m very busy,” Amanda said as she tried to walk past them, but Den stopped her, taking hold of her arms.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. I’m not gonna hurt you, okay?” Dean said as he guided Amanda back into the room and let her go. “But listen to me, the pilot from 2485, Chuck Lambert, he’s dead.”

“Wait, what? Chuck is dead?” Amanda said, shocked.

“He died in a plane crash,” Dean told her. “Now, that’s two plane crashes in two months. That doesn’t strike you as strange?”

“Look, there was something wrong with 2485,” Sam carried on. “Now, maybe you sensed it, and maybe you didn’t, but there’s something wrong with this flight, too.”

“Amanda, you have to believe us,” Dean finished. The three watched her expectantly as she struggled with the decision about whether she believed these three or not.

“On… on 2485, there was this man,” Amanda began, making her decision. “He… had these eyes.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what we’re talking about,” Sam said.

“But I don’t understand. What are you asking me to do?” Amanda asked.

“Get the co-pilot,” Dean told her. “We need you to bring him back here.”

“Why? What does he have to do with anything?”

“Don’t have time to explain. We just need to talk to him, okay?”

“But how am I supposed to go into the cockpit and get the co-pilot….”

“Whatever it takes,” Sam cut her off “Do whatever it takes. Tell him there’s something broken back here. Whatever will get him out of that cockpit.”

“Do you know that I could lose my job if….”

“You’re gonna lose a lot more than that if you don’t help us out,” Emma said, now her turn to cut Amanda off. And they all paused, waiting for a response from Amanda.

“Okay,” she said, leaving the curtained area. Sam, Dean and Emma watched her walk over to the cockpit and the co-pilot come out. After saying whatever she had to him, Amanda and the co-pilot now started walking back towards Sam, Dean and Emma. Pulling back behind the curtain, the trio got ready to perform the on air exorcism, taking out a bottle of holy water and their father’s journal. The minute the co-pilot entered the area, Dean punched him, knocking him to the ground and covering his mouth in duct tape. He and Emma then pinned him to the floor as Amanda watched on in horror.

“What are you doing? You said you were just gonna talk to him!” Amanda almost screamed.

“We are gonna talk to him,” Dean said as he and Emma tried to keep hold of the wildly thrashing co-pilot. He continued thrashing harder as Sam sprinkled holy water on him, holes burning through his clothes where it hit.

“Oh, my God, what’s wrong with him?” Amanda said, beginning to panic at what she was seeing.

“We need you calm,” Emma said, looking up at her. “We need you outside the curtain. Don’t let anybody in, okay? Can you do that?” Amanda didn’t answer; she just continued to stare at the co-pilot.

“Amanda?” Emma called again.

“Okay. Okay,” Amanda said weakly, leaving the area and standing outside the curtain, leaving Sam, Dean and Emma with the possessed co-pilot.

“Hurry up, Sam,” Dean said as he and Emma began to have trouble holding down the co-pilot. “I don’t know how much longer we can hold him.”

Sam began the ritual, reading the Latin from his father’s journal. Sensing what was coming, the demon inside the co-pilot began to wrestle harder against Dean and Emma. As the demon became stronger, he knocked the bottle of holy water from Sam’s hand before he sent the three flying against the wall. Unfazed, Sam grabbed the journal and continued to read. Without Dean and Emma holding onto him, the co-pilot managed to rip the duct tape from his mouth, grabbing Sam by the front of his shirt.

“I know what happened to your girlfriend!” the demon screamed at Sam, who just stared at him, shocked beyond belief. “She must have died screaming! Even now, she’s burning!”

Pulling herself away from the wall after hearing the demons words, Emma kicked the co-pilot across the side of the face, quieting him before he could say anymore to the already distressed Sam. She and Dean restrained the co-pilot again, but Sam didn’t move an inch. He was too lost in his thoughts to think of anything, and Emma could see this.

“Sam!” she screamed at him. Although under most circumstances, she would have done anything to get him to let out his feelings and make him feel better, now wasn’t the time.

Knocked back to reality, Sam picked up the journal and continued to recite the spell in Latin. Once the spell was finished, Sam pushed the journal to one side and helped Dean and Emma hold down the pilot.

“I got him!” Sam called as the co-pilot became to scream and kick out his legs. His legs thrashing, he kicked the journal through the curtain and into the plane. Screaming louder, the co-pilots mouth flew open and a black mist tunnels out of his mouth and into the air vents of the plane. With the demon out of him, the co-pilot lay motionless on the floor.

“Where’d it go?” Sam called to the others.

“It’s in the plane,” Dean answered. “Hurry up, we’ve got to finish it.”

As the three stood to retrieve the journal from the plane, the demon took over and the plane began to plummet. While Sam was jerked head first through the curtain and into the plane, Dean and Emma were three against the wall.

In the main area of the plane, the passengers were beginning to panic, strapping themselves tightly into their seats. Through the midst of all the chaos, Sam crawled through the seats and reached for the journal.

“Got it!” he called as his hand closed round it. Kneeling in the middle of the aisle, Sam opened the journal and went on to the second part of the exorcism, screaming in Latin as the plane continued to dive.

Behind the curtain, Dean and Emma tried once again to make their way into the plane but were once against stop as the plane jolted violently. They were again thrown into the wall, Dean screaming as he clung to Emma who had her eyes closed and was simply waited for Sam to come through and for the plane to level out.

Inside the seating area, chaos still ensues. Papers and objects are flying everywhere as the passengers continue to scream and duck flying objects. Still screaming in Latin, Sam came to the end of the exorcism as a bolt of electrical white light flew from the plane, dispersing the demon.

With the demon gone, the plane now levelled out and the passengers calmed as the plane began travelling smoothly through the air again. Breathing heavily, Sam stood up as Dean and Emma popped out from behind the curtain, both looking a little shaken. The three exchanged a look, thanking the heavens that the ordeal was finally over.

@~~>~~~

Once the plane had managed to land safely, police and paramedics had been immediately called to the scene and were now talking to passengers and flight personal. Now revived, the co-pilot was sat in a wheelchair with a blanket wrapped round him as he spoke to the cops.

“Sir, can you tell me what happened?” one officer was asking him.

“I don’t know,” the co-pilot answered. “I was walking through the airport, then it all goes blank. I don’t even remember gettin’ on the plane.”

Close by, Amanda was also being questioned by an FBI agent. With the agent writing in his little pad, Amanda turned up and noticed Sam, Dean and Emma, stood nearby. Smiling, she mouthed the words ‘Thank You’ to them. They nodded back at her, also smiling.

“Dean,” Emma said, turning to her boyfriend. “You are certainly not on your own with your fear of flying anymore.” Laughing slightly, Dean slipped his arm round Emma’s shoulder and hugged her softly.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, and Sam and Emma followed him from the airport, Sam walking in silence.

“You okay?” Emma asked as she noticed this, walking beside him. Sam stopped abruptly in front of Dean and Emma, blocking them.

“It knew about Jessica,” Sam said simply.

“Sam, these things… they read minds,” Emma told him, trying to be comforting. “They lie, all right? That’s all it was.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, not really believing her. And Emma wasn’t even sure if she believed herself. She just needed to say something to make Sam feel better, no matter what it was.

“Come on,” Dean said, walking towards the exit. Sam and Emma followed a few paces behind, Emma hugging against Sam’s side as they walked.

@~~>~~~

Back with their car and outside Jerry’s airport again, Sam, Dean and Emma stood saying their goodbyes to Jerry.

“Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do. A lot of people could have been killed,” Jerry said, shaking each one of their hands. “Your dad’s gonna be real proud.”

“We’ll see you around, Jerry,” Sam said as he turned to walk away.

“You know, Jerry?” Dean said, stopping him in his tracks.

“Yeah?” Jerry said, turning to him.

“I meant to ask you, how did you get my cell phone number, anyway? I’ve only had it for, like, six months.”

“Your dad gave it to me,” Jerry answered. That simply answer put the three in shock, turning to Jerry and staring open mouthed at him.

“What?” Sam asked.

“When did you talk to him?” Dean asked.

“Well, I didn’t exactly talk to him, but I called his number, and his voice message said to give you a call.” The three just nodded at Jerry’s response, not all that sure of what to say. “Thanks again, guys,” Jerry said as he walked away.

Once Jerry was gone, the three left all exchanged a look. Searching for the boy’s father, they had just been given their first lead in a long way. A major lead.

@~~>~~~

Not too long later, Sam, Dean and Emma had parked up just outside the airport and were sat on the trunk of the Impala, Dean dialling their father’s number.

“This doesn’t make any sense, man,” Sam said. “I’ve called Dad’s number, like, fifty times. It’s been out of service.” Not really paying attention to Sam, Dean put the phone on speaker so the three could listen as their father’s voicemail played out.

“This is John Winchester,” Their dad’s voice rang out. “I can’t be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean at 866-907-3235. He can help.”

With the message finished, Dean hung up, all three staring out into space. Near tears, Sam got up and walked back to the car without a word. For so long, they didn’t even know if their father was alive. He just had to keep telling himself that at least this was something.

“You know, if his cell phones back in service, maybe we’re getting closer,” Emma said, trying to be positive. She saw the look in Dean’s eyes that she rarely saw. Only when they were kids. The look that said he really wasn’t sure where to go from here.

“Yeah,” Dean answered simply, getting up and walking to the car. As much as he wanted to believe Emma and know that maybe his dad was close by, he wasn’t sure if they could. So far they had come up with nothing on this search. This was all too easy to be true, and he knew that.

A moment later, Emma was the last to slide into the backseat of the car and the they drove off, their car journey quieter than it ever had been as all three were lost in their own thoughts.


	5. Bloody Mary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> In suburban Nebraska, a group of partying high school teens jokingly dare their friend Charlie to look into the mirror and repeat 'Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary," not knowing this will unleash a series of mysterious murders. Sam, Dean and Emma realize that Bloody Mary has the power to travel through all reflective surfaces when she is hunting a victim. Worried that teens are accidentally summoning Bloody Mary, Sam, Dean and Emma race to destroy the violent spirit before she can kill again.

In the candle lit living room of a suburban house in Toledo, Ohio, three girls sit laughing and joking.

“Ok your turn, truth or dare?” one of the girls asked Lily, the young girls who’s house they were in.

“Truth,” Lily answered.

“Do you want to make out with Benji Swartz?” the first girl asked, and the other girl fell about laughing.

“Dare,” Lilly said, changing her mind once she heard the question.

“Okay, lame,” the first girl said. “You have to… say ‘Bloody Mary’ in the bathroom.”

“Is that the best you can come up with?” Lily said with a cocky smile.

“Who’s Bloody Mary?” the third girl in the house asked.

“She’s this witch,” the first girl answered.

“I heard she was a lady killed in a car crash,” Lily corrected.

“It doesn’t matter who she is. Point is, if you say her name three times in the bathroom mirror she appears….” The first girl paused dramatically, watching the two girl in front of her. “And scratches your eyes out!” she finished louder, causing the other two girls to jump.

“So why would anyone say it?” the third girl asked.

“Because it isn’t real,” Lily said as she stood up.

“No turning on the lights,” the first girl said, handing Lily the candle holder. “And remember… three times.”

@~~>~~~

Going through with her dare, Lily walked into the bathroom, glancing at the shadows on the wall made by the candle. Closing the door behind her, she put down the candle and stood in front of the mirror.

“Bloody Mary,” she began. “This is so stupid. Bloody Mary.” She watched the candle flicker in the windless room before she finished.

“Bloody Mary.”

She paused, waiting for something to happen. Just when she thought she was safe, a pounding echoed round the bathroom , causing her to scream her loudest.

@~~>~~~

Outside of the bathroom, her two friends are stood by the door, pounding against it. Their laughter travelled through to Lily inside and she stepped out of the bathroom, glaring at her friends.

“Scared ya,” the first girl said with a smile.

“You guys are jerks,” Lily said with a small laugh.

“Lily,” her dad’s voice called down to them. She looked up to see him stood at the top of the stairs. “Do you mind keeping it down?”

“Sorry daddy,” Lily said.

“Sorry Mr. Shoemaker,” the other two girls echoed in unison. Smiling at his daughter and her friends, Mr Shoemaker headed towards the upstairs bathroom. As he passed the hall mirror, a female figure that can be no-one other than Mary stands looking out at him from the mirror, but he doesn’t notice.

Carrying on down the hall, Mr Shoemaker walks past another mirror, and Mary is again standing there. Straightening a picture, he again doesn’t see the strange figure standing in the mirror. Nor does he see the figure in the small mirror he walks past on his way to the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom, Mr Shoemaker pulled out a bottle of tablets from the bathroom cabinet and pops a couple into his mouth. Dropping his head down, he stares into his reflection in the mirror. Staring, he suddenly notices scratches appearing beneath his eyes.

@~~>~~~

Back downstairs, the girl are again in the living room and talking, Lily’s supposed crush on Benji Swartz the main topic.

“You so like him!” the third girl was saying through the laughter. They all heard the door click open and Lily’s older sister, Donna, walked in.

“Hey geek. You guys having fun?” Donna said in greeting.

“You’re out past curfew,” Lily replied.

“Thanks dad,” Donna said sarcastically as she walked upstairs. Heading to her bedroom, Donna had to walk past the bathroom. Walking round the corner, Donna saw the pool of what could only be blood seeping from underneath the bathroom door. She paused before walking slowly towards it, reaching out her hand and pushing the door slowly open. As he eyes met the scene before her eyes, Donna let out an echoing scream.

@~~>~~~

Sam lay on his bed at his room at Stanford, eyes closed and relaxed. Again, blood begins to drip on his head and Sam opens his eyes to see Jessica pinned to the ceiling, the blood dripping from her stomach. He screams no as another voice echoes through the nightmare. Jessica’s voice.

“Why Sam?”

@~~>~~~

In the car, Sam was being shaken awake by Emma pushing lightly on his shoulders from the back seat.

“Sam wake up,” Emma called as Sam slipped back into the land of the living, looking around curiously at his surroundings.

“I take it I was having a nightmare,” Sam said simply.

“Yeah, another one,” Emma answered.

“Hey, at least I got some sleep,” Sam said, trying to joke his way out of actually having to talk about his nightmare. But Emma wasn’t having any of it.

“You know, sooner or later we’re gonna have to talk about this,” she said defiantly. Sam nodded, but didn’t acknowledge her statement properly.

“Are we here?” he asked.

“Yup, welcome to Toledo, Ohio,” Dean answered. Sam picked up the newspaper from the dashboard, going over the article they had circled. It was an obituary for Steven Shoemaker.

“So what do you think really happened to him?” Sam asked.

“That’s what we’re gonna find out. Let’s go,” Dean said, stepping out of the car with Sam and Emma following.

@~~>~~~

Inside the morgue they had been parked outside, Sam, Dean and Emma walked into room 144. Walking past the absent doctor’s desk, Dean looked at the name. Dr D. Feiklowicz. Brilliant! Had to pick the doctor with the unpronounceable name.

“Hey,” the morgue tech said as they walked up to his desk.

“Hey,” Dean replied.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “We’re the uh... med students.”

“Sorry?” the morgue tech said.

“Oh Doctor… Feiklowicz didn’t tell you?” Dean said, hopefully managing to get the name right. “We talked to him on the phone. We uh… We’re from Ohio State. He’s supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse. It’s for our paper.”

“Well I’m sorry, he’s at lunch,” the morgue tech said.

“Oh well he said uh… Oh well, you know, it doesn’t matter. You don’t mind showing us the body do you?”

“Sorry, I can’t,” the morgue tech answered. “Doc will be back in an hour, you can wait for him if you want.”

“An hour? Ooh. We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then,” Dean said, looking over at Sam and Emma beside him.

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly.

“Uh look man, this paper’s like half hour grade, so if you don’t mind helping us out,” Dean said.

“Oh look man,” the morgue tech said mockingly. “No.”

“I’m gonna hit him in his face I swear,” Dean mumbled as he turned away from the morgue tech. Emma whacked him across the arm, pushing in front of him. She pulled some twenty’s from her pocket and placed them down in front of the morgue tech, smiling.

“Follow me,” he said, picking up the money and walking away. Sam and Emma went to follow, but Dean grabbed Emma’s arm before she could walk away, Sam stopping beside her as well.

“I earned that money,” Dean said.

“You won it in a poker game,” Emma answered truthfully.

“Yeah,” Dean said in a so what manner. Emma shook her head as the three followed the morgue tech.

@~~>~~~

In the morgue, Sam, Dean, Emma and the morgue tech all stood around the body, covered up for the moment.

“Now the newspaper said his daughter found him,” Sam said. “She said his eyes were bleeding.”

“More than that. They practically liquefied,” the morgue tech said as he pulled back the blanket to reveal Steven Shoemaker, who’s eyes were now missing.

“Any sign of a struggle? Maybe somebody did it to him?” Dean said, all three of them hiding grimaces. Even though they saw stuff like this every day, it still wasn’t too nice to be around.

“Nope,” the morgue tech answered. “Besides the daughter, he was all alone.”

“What’s the official cause of death?” Sam asked.

“Doc’s not sure. Massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that’s for sure.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

“The eyes, what would cause something like that?”

“Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims.”

“Yeah? You ever see exploding eyeballs?” Emma said.

“That’s a first for me, but hey, I’m not the doctor.”

“Think we could take a look at that police report?” Dean asked. “You know for, uh… our paper.”

“I’m not really supposed to show you that,” the morgue tech answered with a sly smile. Looking annoyed, Emma reached inside Dean’s jacket pocket, not willing to use her money again.

“Hey,” Dean called to her. She simply shrugged and pulled out his wallet.

@~~>~~~

Now they had got what they wanted from the morgue tech, as well as him getting quite a bit from them, Sam, Dean and Emma were making their way to the car.

“Might not be one of ours,” Sam said. “Might just be some freak medical thing.”

“How many times in dad’s long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?” Dean said.

“Uh, almost never,” Sam answered, thinking about the answer.

“Exactly,” Dean said.

“All right, let’s go talk to the daughter,” Emma said, walking out in front of the boys.

@~~>~~~

Arriving at the daughters, house, Sam, Dean and Emma arrived in the middle of the funeral reception. Pictures of him were scattered over all the counters, and everyone in the room were wearing either suits for the men of black dresses when it came to the women.

“Feel like we’re underdressed,” Dean mumbled as they walked through the house. Asking where they could find the daughter, Sam Dean and Emma were led outside to where the two daughters and two of their friends were sat.

“You must be Donna right?” Dean said as they stepped up to her.

“Yeah,” Donna answered.

“Hi uh… we’re really sorry,” Sam said with true sympathy.

“Thank you,” Donna said with a small smile.

“I’m Sam, this is Dean and Emma. Us two,” Sam said, indicating himself and Dean. “We worked with your dad.”

“You did?” Donna said sceptically.

“Yeah. This whole thing. I mean, a stroke,” Dean said.

“I don’t think she really wants to talk about this right now,” her friend sat beside her, Charlie, said, looking sternly up at Sam, Dean and Emma.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” Donna said to her friend.

“Were there any symptoms?” Dean said after a short pause, knowing that Donna was ok with the going on. “Dizziness? Migraines?”

“No,” Donna answered.

“That’s because it wasn’t a stroke,” Lily sat from behind Donna, finally turning to the rest of the group.

“Lily, don’t say that,” Donna said to her little sister.

“What?” Emma asked both Lily and Donna.

“I’m sorry, she’s just upset,” Donna said.

“No, it happened because of me,” Lily said, tears welling up behind her eyes.

“Sweetie, it didn’t,” her sister told her.

“Lily,” Emma said, walking to her and kneeling down to her eye level. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Right before he died, I said it,” Lily said almost cryptically.

“You said what?” Emma asked.

“Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror,” Lily answered, to which Emma looked up to gage Sam and Dean’s reactions. “She took his eyes, that’s what she does.”

“That’s not why dad died,” Donna said. “This isn’t your fault.”

“I think your sister’s right, Lily,” Dean said. “There’s no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your dad didn’t say it, did he?”

“No I don’t think so,” Lily said. Dean smiled down at her, although he made a mental note to look into the theory of Bloody Mary, like he was sure Sam and Emma were.

@~~>~~~

Now having talked to the daughters, the trio snuck inside the house, and up the stairs. Walking down the same hallway Mr. Shoemaker and his daughter had a couple of nights ago, they made their way to the bathroom. They pushed open the bathroom door, a clear blood stain on the floor.

“The Bloody Mary legend,” Emma said in an almost whisper.

“Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?” Sam asked.

“Not that I know of,” Dean said as he and Emma walked into the bathroom. Sam stayed by the door, stooping to the floor to examine the blood stain.

“I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, no one dies from it,” Sam said.

“Yeah well maybe everywhere it’s just a story but here it’s actually happening,” Dean suggested.

“The place where the legend began?” Sam asked. Dean merely shrugged his shoulders.

“But according to the legend, the person who says….” Before going on, Sam looked sideways to the mirror of the medicine cabinet. Emma had just opened it and it was now pointing his way. For fear of what might happen, Sam shut the mirror before continuing. “The person who says you know what, gets it. But here….”

“Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah,” Emma said.

“Right,” Sam said.

“Never heard anything like that before.”

“Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror,” Dean said. “And the daughter’s right. The way the legend goes, ‘you know who’ scratches your eyes out.”

“It’s worth checking in to,” Emma said. From outside of there bathroom, the three heard the sound of shoes approaching them. Seeing who it was, Sam, Dean and Emma quickly left the bathroom just as Charlie stopped in front of them.

“What are you doing up here?” Charlie asked.

“We… we, had to go to the bathroom,” Dean said, clearly the first thing that came to his mind, and earning a glare from Sam and Emma.

“Who are you?” Charlie asked.

“Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna’s dad,” Dean said.

“He was a day trader or something, he worked by himself.”

“No, I know, I meant….” Dean began to stammer out, just having been caught.

“And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what’s going on, or I start screaming.”

“All right, all right,” Sam said, taking over before Dean could come up with another ridiculous lie. “We think something happened to Donna’s dad.”

“Yeah, a stroke,” Charlie said matter-of-factly.

“That’s not a sign of a typical stroke,” Emma said, pointing towards the blood marked floor.

“We think it might be something else,” Sam said.

“Like what?” Charlie asked, still with the questions.

“Honestly? We don’t know yet,” Sam said. “But we don’t want it to happen to anyone else. That’s the truth.”

“So… if you’re gonna scream, go right ahead,” Emma told Charlie, who remained quiet.

“Who are you, cops?” she said finally.

“Something like that,” Dean said.

“I’ll tell you what. Here,” Sam said, taking a pen and a small piece of paper from his pocket which he wrote his number on. “If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary… just give us a call.”

Handing the paper to Charlie, Sam smiled politely before he, Dean and Emma left.

@~~>~~~

Searching up on Bloody Mary, if that was actually what was haunting this town, Sam, Dean and Emma made their way to the local library.

“Say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town,” Dean said as they walked to the library entrance. “There’s gonna be some sort of proof. Like a local woman who died nasty.”

“Yeah but a legend this widespread it’s hard,” Emma said as they stepped through the library door. “I mean, there’s like 50 versions of who she actually is. One story says she’s a witch, another says she’s a mutilated bride, there’s a lot more.”

“All right so what are we supposed to be looking for?” Dean asked.

“Every version’s got a few things in common,” Sam said. “It’s always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we’ve gotta search local newspapers, public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill.”

“Well that sounds annoying.”

“No it won’t be so bad, as long as we….” Emma began, turning to see that all the computers had ‘Out of Order’ written across them. “I take it back. This will be very annoying.”

@~~>~~~

While Sam, Dean and Emma were sat in the library, going over their extremely annoying research, Charlie was driving home, talking on her cell phone top her friend Jill.

“I’m not sure. They were cops or detectives or something,” Charlie said, referring to Sam, Dean and Emma.

“Whoever they were, they were cute,” Jill said as she walked round her bedroom.

“Jill.”

“You didn’t think so?” Jill asked her friend.

“Yeah okay they were cute,” Charlie answered.

“Yeah, but the girl. I mean, she can’t be with one of them. Please, they can both do better.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Charlie said, rolling her eyes to her friends comment. “Still, do you think something happened to Donna’s dad?”

“Maybe Lily was right. Maybe Bloody Mary got him.”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

“Wait, I’m sorry. Was that fear I hear in your voice?” Jill said with a small laugh.

“No,” Charlie answered, but not all the believable.

“Charlie, I’m walking to the bathroom mirror right now,” Jill said, getting off her bed and walking towards the bathroom.

“Jill, quit it.”

“Oh no, I can’t help myself. I’m gonna say it,” Jill said as she stood in front of her bathroom mirror. “Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.” And then the phone went silent.

“Jill?” Charlie called to her friend. There was silence again, until Jill echoed a ear piercing scream down the phone line.

“Jill!?!” Charlie called, her voice filled with concern and fear. Until Jill’s screaming turned to laughter.

“You’re such a freak, I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jill said as both friends hung up, leaving Jill to finish getting ready for bed.

Opening her closet door, Jill slips off her pants, her back to her mirror. If she had looked in the mirror, she would have seen the image of Bloody Mary staring back at her. But she didn’t. She closed the closet door, walking over to her dresser, removing her jewellery. Again, the image of Bloody Mary watches her in the mirror which Jill does not look in, and from the reflection on the TV screen as Jill walks past.

Walking into the bathroom, Jill bent over the sink to rinse her face. But her reflection didn’t. Her reflection stayed stood, watching its owners every move. Looking up into the mirror, Jill found her reflection staring back at her with an expression that was not on her face. Like her reflection was a totally different person. As Jill began to panic, blood began to drip from her reflections eyes. Jill reached up to her face to find blood dripping from her own eyes.

“You did it,” her reflection said to her. “You killed that boy.”

Gasping for air, Jill fell to the floor, begin choked to death by an invisible force. And as she struggled for breath, her reflection watched, a smug grin on its features.

@~~>~~~

Sam was having another nightmare. As Sam lay on his bed the night he found Jessica, the flames move backwards, sucking up into her body as Sam watches in awe. Two words are again heard uttered through Jessica’s still lips.

“Why Sam?”

Gasping for breath, Sam woke up on his bed in the motel room, Dean and Emma looking up from their research as he woke.

“Why’d you let me fall asleep?” Sam asked simply.

“Cause I’m an awesome brother,” Dean answered.

“So what did you dream about?” Emma asked.

“Lollipops and candy canes,” was the answer Sam gave.

“Yeah, sure,” Emma said.

“Did you find anything?” Sam asked, trying to draw the conversation away from his dreams. And although Emma didn’t want to, she complied for Sam’s sake.

“Oh besides a whole new level of frustration?” she said as Sam sat up. “No. We’ve looked at everything. A few local women, a Laura and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror, and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary.”

“Maybe we just haven’t found it yet,” Sam said, falling back against the bed.

“We’ve also been searching for strange deaths in the area,” Dean said. “You know… eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There’s nothing. Whatever’s happening here, maybe it just ain’t Mary.”

Sam sighed, this investigation going nowhere. Just then, Sam’s cell phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket, answering it.

“Hello?” he said. As the voice on the other end answered, Sam sat up, a look of concern across his features.

@~~>~~~

The caller had been Charlie. The three had just met up with her at a park. Charlie was sat crying, Emma beside her and Dean sat on the back of the bench while Sam stood over them.

“And they found her on the bathroom floor,” Charlie said, continuing to tell them Jill’s story. “And her… her eyes. They were gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said.

“And she said it,” Charlie continued, causing Dean and Emma to look up at Sam. “I heard her say it. But it couldn’t be because of that. I’m insane, right?”

“No, you’re not insane,” Emma said, trying to be comforting.

“Oh God, that makes me feel so much worse,” Charlie said as she dropped her head into her hands.

“Look,” Sam began, making Charlie look up at him. “We think something’s happening here. Something that can’t be explained.”

“And we’re gonna stop it but we could use your help,” Dean finished.

@~~>~~~

There first stop was now Jill’s bedroom, the newest crime scene. Charlie walked into the room, closing the door behind her and walking over to the window. Sam, Dean and Emma were knelt beside the window, climbing in as Charlie opened it for them. Sam and Emma entered first, Emma catching the duffle bag that Dean threw her way, laying it on the bed and searching through it.

“What did you tell Jill’s mom?” Sam asked as Dean climbed in the window.

“Just that I needed some time alone with Jill’s pictures and things,” Charlie answered, watching as Emma pulled something out of the bag and Dean closed the curtains. “I hate lying to her.”

“Trust us, this is for the greater good,” Dean said. “Hit the lights,” he told Charlie, and she switched them all off.

“What are you guys looking for?” she asked as she walked back over to them.

“We’ll let you know as soon as we find it,” Dean answered. Emma switched on the digital camera she had in her hand, checking the image on the screen.

“Hey, night vision,” she said to Dean as she held it out to her. Dean flicked a switch ad the camera went to night vision.

“Thanks. Perfect,” Emma said, the camera now focused on Dean and he knew it.

“Do I look like Paris Hilton?” he asked, striking a pose. Laughing slightly, Emma walked to Jill’s closet with the camera. She opened the door and aimed the camera round the edges of the mirror, searching for something only the night vision could see.

“So I don’t get it,” Sam said. “I mean… the first victim didn’t summon Mary, and the second victim did. How’s she choosing them?”

“Beats me,” Dean said as Emma closed the closet and moved to Jill’s dresser. “I want to know why Jill said it in the first place,” Dean said, pointedly turning to Charlie.

“It’s just a joke,” Charlie answered.

“Yeah well somebody’s gonna say it again, it’s just a matter of time,” Dean said.

Emma was now in the bathroom, aiming the camera round the edges of the bathroom mirror. She stopped at the bottom when the camera caught something. A trickle of something running down from behind the mirror.

“Hey,” Emma called from the bathroom, and Sam, Dean and Charlie turned to look her way. “There’s a black light in the trunk, right?” she asked.

There was, and Dean went to get it while Sam carried the mirror out of the bathroom lying it on the bed in front of Emma as climbed back in the window and threw Emma the black light. Peeling of the brown paper from the back, Emma shone the black light over the back. Under the black light, she found the image of a smudged handprint and a name written beneath it.

“Gary Bryman?” Charlie read off the name.

“You know who that is?” Emma asked.

“No,” Charlie answered.

@~~>~~~

Following up the Gary Bryman link, it had led them to a small house in town. Dean, Emma and Charlie sat outside while Sam went inside.

“So,” Sam said, coming out of the house and stopping beside them. “Gary Bryman was an 8-year-old boy. Two years ago he was killed in a hit and run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry. But nobody got the plates or saw the driver.”

“Oh my God,” Charlie mumbled as she heard the car name.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Jill drove that car,” she told them.

“We need to get back to your friend Donna’s house,” Dean said, new theory’s beginning to slip into place.

@~~>~~~

In the bathroom in the Shoemaker house, the trio had pulled the mirror from the bathroom wall and were now hunched over it while Emma shone the black light across the back. They found the same handprint, and another name written across the bottom.

“Linda Shoemaker,” Emma read off the name. Looking further into this, Sam, Dean and Emma went downstairs to Donna and Charlie and asked about Linda Shoemaker.

“Why are you asking me this?” Donna said.

“Look, we’re sorry, but it’s important,” Emma said.

“Yeah. Linda’s my mom okay?” Donna said, answering their questions. “She overdosed on sleeping pills, it was an accident, and that’s it. I think you should leave.”

“Now Donna, just listen….”

“Get out of my house!” Donna cut in, running up her stairs and not listening at all.

“Oh my God,” Charlie said once Donna was gone, turning to the three. “Do you really think her dad could’ve killed her mom?”

“Maybe,” Sam answered.

“I think I should stick around,” Charlie said.

“All right. Whatever you do, don’t….” But Dean didn’t need to finish that sentence.

“Believe me, I won’t say it,” Charlie told them.

@~~>~~~

Back at the motel, Emma sat at the laptop with Dean beside her, Sam wondering round the room and looking through what they already had.

“Wait, wait, wait, you’re doing a nationwide search?” Sam asked.

“Yep,” Emma said, her concentration still on the computer screen. “The NCIC, the FBI database. At this point any Mary who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me.”

“But if she’s haunting the town, she should have died in the town,” Sam said.

“I’m telling you there’s nothing local, we’ve checked. So unless you got a better idea….” Emma said, trailing off and knowing that he didn’t.

“The way Mary’s choosing her victims, it seems like there’s a pattern,” Sam said.

“I know, I was thinking the same thing,” Dean said.

“With mister Shoemaker and Jill’s hit and run,” Sam said.

“Both had secrets where people died,” Dean finished for him.

“Right,” Sam said. “I mean there’s a lot of folklore about mirrors-that they reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they’re a true reflection of your soul, which is why it’s bad luck to break them.”

“Right, right,” Dean said, not noticing that the girl beside them seemed to have found something on the computer, her concentration kicking up a notch. “So maybe if you’ve got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it, and punishes you for it.”

“Whether you’re the one that summoned her or not,” Sam said.

“Take a look at this,” Emma said, letting them know she had fund something. Printing off from the site she had found, Emma printed two pictures. One of a woman lay by a mirror in a pool of blood, and the other of a handprint and the letter ‘Tre’.

“Looks like the same handprint,” Sam said, comparing it to the pictures they had taken from the mirror’s in Jill’s and Donna’s house.

“Her name was Mary Worthington,” Emma told them. “An unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana.”

@~~>~~~

Finding out what they could on this case from the internet, Sam, Dean and Emma had tracked down the detective who had been on the case, and were now in Fort Wayne, Indiana, grilling the detective about Mary Worthington.

“I was on the job for 35 years,” the detective told them. “Detective for most of that. Now everybody packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder. That one still gets me.”

“What exactly happened?” Dean asked.

“You guys said you were reporters?” the detective said.

“We know Mary was 19, lived by herself,” Emma began telling what they had probably thousands of other people who had the internet could easily find out. “We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March 29th someone broke into her apartment and murdered her, cut out her eyes with a knife.”

“That’s right,” the detective said.

“See sir, when we asked you what happened, we wanted to know what you think happened,” Dean said. Showing them what he thought happened, the detective led them into another room, pulling out his file on the Mary Worthington case.

“Technically I’m not supposed to have a copy of this,” the detective said, opening up the folder to show them the pictures they had already found on the internet.

“Now see that there?” he said, pointing to the picture of the handprint. “T-R-E?”

“Yeah,” Dean said.

“I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer.”

“You know who it was?” Sam asked.

“Not for sure. But there was a local man, a surgeon. Trevor Sampson,” the detective said, pulling out a picture of him. “And I think her cut her up good.”

“Now why would he do something like that?” Sam asked.

“Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial, ‘T’. Well, her last entry, she was gonna tell ‘T’ ’s wife about their affair.”

“Yeah but how do you know it was Sampson who killed her?” Emma asked.

“It’s hard to say, but the way her eyes were cut out… it was almost professional.”

“But you could never prove it?” Emma said.

“No. No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous.”

“Is he still alive?” Dean asked.

“Nope,” the detective said, sitting down with a sigh. “If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy’s secret. But she never could.”

“Where’s she buried?” Sam asked.

“She wasn’t. She was cremated,” the detective said, and the three inwardly sighed in dismay.

“What about that mirror,” Dean said, nodding at the picture. “It’s not in some evidence lockup somewhere is it?”

“Ah, no. It was returned to Mary’s family a long time ago.”

“You have the names of her family by any chance?” Emma asked.

@~~>~~~

Back in Toledo, Donna and Charlie were at school, and Charlie had tried to explain to Donna what exactly Sam, Dean and Emma had been doing.

“I mean, you bring these strangers into my house and they ask me things like that?” Donna said as they walked into the bathroom.

“They were only trying to help,” Charlie said. “Please, Donna, you have to believe me.”

“What? About Bloody Mary?” Donna said as they stopped in front of the mirror.

“Please, I know it sounds crazy….”

“Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Donna cut in. “I mean it’s one thing for my sister to believe this crap, she’s 12. But you?”

“Think about the way your dad died, okay?” Charlie said. And the way Jill died.”

“Okay so,” Donna said, turning to face the mirror. “Bloody Mary.”

“No!” Charlie said, but Donna didn’t stop.

“Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary,” Donna finished, turning to Charlie. “See? Nothing happened.”

“Why would you do that?” Charlie said, the fear apparent in her voice.

“Oh my God. There really is something wrong with you,” Donna said as she walked away from her friend. Not even daring to glance in the mirror, Charlie walked out of the bathroom and to her next lesson. As she walked down the corridors, her head hung, Bloody Mary watched her in the reflection of the classroom windows.

@~~>~~~

Now in her classroom, Charlie sat in her science class while the teacher prattled on.

“Elements that loose electrons become positive ions, which are smaller than other atoms of the same element,” the teacher was saying. “Therefore the ionic radius is smaller than the atomic radius.”

Paying little attention to the teacher, like the rest of the class, Charlie opened up her compact mirror. But Charlie’s isn’t the only reflection. Focusing the mirror on the black shadow in the corner of the mirror, Charlie positioned it to see Bloody Mary staring back at her. Charlie screamed her loudest, running round the classroom and freaking out the rest of the class and the teacher.

“Charlie!” the teacher called to her as she turned to see the reflection of Bloody Mary in the window. Screaming, Charlie picked up a stool and threw it through the window.

“Charlie!!!” the teacher said, coming round the desk and grabbing her by the arm “Charlie stop it! What’s wrong!? Just calm down.”

From the reflection in his glasses, Charlie again saw Bloody Mary and screamed louder, struggling to get out of the teacher’s grasp.

“Let me go!” she screamed as she pulled away from him and ran from the room, the teacher still shouting her name.

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma were now driving away from Fort Wayne and back to Toledo, Emma on the phone ion the front seat of the car.

“Oh really?” she said into the phone. “Ah that’s too bad Mr. Worthington. I would have paid a lot for that mirror. Okay, well maybe next time. All right, thanks.” She finished as she hung up the phone.

“So?” Dean asked.

“So that was Mary’s brother,” Emma told the brothers. “The mirror was in the family for years, until he sold it one week ago to a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo.”

“So wherever the mirror goes, that’s where Mary goes?” Dean said.

“Her spirit’s definitely tied up with it somehow,” Sam stated.

“Isn’t there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?” Dean asked.

“Yeah there is,” Emma answered. “Yeah, when someone would die in a house people would cover up the mirrors so the ghost wouldn’t get trapped.”

“So Mary dies in front of a mirror, and it draws in her spirit,” Dean stated more than asked.

“Yeah but how could she move through like a hundred different mirrors?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, but if the mirror is the source, I say we find it and smash it.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, maybe,” Sam said. Before Dean or Emma could question his ‘maybe’, Sam’s cell phone rang.

“Hello,” he said into the phone. As the voice on the other end spoke, the look of concern came over Sam’s face again.

“Charlie?”

@~~>~~~

At the motel where Sam, Dean and Emma were staying, they had Charlie sat on the bed, curled in a ball with her head in her knees. Emma sat beside her, watching as the two boys covered all the windows, mirrors, anything with a reflection. Any mirror they couldn’t cover, they turned to the wall.

“Hey, hey it’s ok,” Emma said to Charlie as the boys finished covering the reflections. “Hey, you can open up your eyes Charlie. It’s okay, all right?” Charlie did, slowly, as Sam sat on the bed beside Emma.

“Now listen,” Emma continued. “You’re gonna stay right here on this bed, and you’re not gonna look at glass, or anything else that has a reflection, okay? And as long as you do that, she cannot get you.”

“But I can’t keep that up forever,” Charlie said softly. “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

“No. No. Not anytime soon,” Sam said comfortingly as Dean sat on the bed the other side of Charlie.

“All right Charlie. We need to know what happened,” he said.

“We were in the bathroom. Donna said it,” Charlie said.

“That’s not what we’re talking about,” Dean said. “Something happened, didn’t it? In your life… a secret… where someone got hurt. Can you tell us about it?” Charlie paused for a minute, looking round at the three in the room with her.

“I had this boyfriend,” Charlie began eventually. “I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me, and he said ‘Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I’m gonna kill myself.’ And you know what I said?” As her memories came flooding out, Charlie’s voice began to break as the tears came with it.

“I said ‘Go ahead,” she continued. “And I left. How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just… I didn’t believe him, you know? I should have.” The tears escape and she dropped her heads into her knees again, sobbing softly.

@~~>~~~

Leaving Charlie in the reflection free room, Sam, Dean and Emma were now driving down to the store to get rid of Mary.

“You know her boyfriend killing himself, that’s not really Charlie’s fault,” Dean said.

“You know as well as I do spirits don’t exactly see shades of gray, Dean,” Sam said, his focus on staring blankly out of the window. “Charlie had a secret, someone died, that’s good enough for Mary.”

“I guess,” Dean said.

“You know, I’ve been thinking. It might not be enough to just smash that mirror,” Sam told them.

“Why, what do you mean?” Emma said, leaning forward in the back seat.

“Well Mary’s hard to pin down, right?” he told them. “I mean she moves around from mirror to mirror so who’s to say that she’s not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? So maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it.”

“Well how do you know that’s going to work?” Emma asked.

“I don’t, not for sure,” Sam said.

“Well who’s gonna summon her?” Emma asked.

“I will. She’ll come after me,” Sam said blankly.

“You know what, that’s it,” Dean said as he roughly pulled the car over, causing Emma to be pushed back into her seat again.

“This is about Jessica, isn’t it?” Dean said once the car had been pulled to a stop. “You think that’s your dirty little secret that you killed her somehow? Sam, this has got to stop, man. I mean, the nightmares and calling her name out in the middle of the night, it’s gonna kill you.”

“Listen to me,” Emma said, leaning forward again. “It wasn’t your fault. If you wanna blame something, then blame the thing that killed her.”

“Or hell, why don’t you take a swing at me?” Dean cut in. “I mean I’m the one that dragged you away from her in the first place.”

“I don’t blame you,” Sam said quickly.

“Well you shouldn’t blame yourself, because there’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“I could’ve warned her,” Sam said, and the edge in his voice told Emma there was more to the story than they knew.

“About what?” Dean said, trying to keep his anger in check. “You didn’t know what was gonna happen! And besides, all of this isn’t a secret, I mean we know all about it. It’s not gonna work with Mary anyway.”

“No you don’t,” Sam said quietly.

“We don’t what?”

“You guys don’t know all about it. I haven’t told you everything,” Sam said, proving Emma’s thoughts right.

“What are you talking about?” Dean said.

“Well it wouldn’t really be a secret if I told you, would it?” Sam said, and all Dean could do was stare in shock and surprise.

“No,” Dean said after a minute. “I don’t like it. It’s not gonna happen, forget it.”

“Dean that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it,” Sam told his brother, his voice now adamant. “And you know what? Who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we’re doing this. You’ve got to let me do this.”

@~~>~~~

Dean and Emma having been forced to give in, Sam was now trying to pick the lock outside of the antiques shop. The door successfully opened and the trio walked in only to be confronted with a shop full of antique mirrors.

“Well… that’s just great,” Emma said. Dean pulled out the picture of Mary’s body lying beside the mirror, showing it to Sam and Emma so they knew what they were looking for.

“All right let’s start looking,” Dean said as they walked off in separate directions, Sam going one way, Emma and Dean the other. What they failed to notice was the small flashing light, signalling they had tripped the silent alarm.

“Maybe they’ve already sold it,” Dean said as their search came up with nothing. While in the other side of the shop, Sam’s flashlight came to rest ion the mirror in question.

“I don’t think so,” Dam called to Dean and Emma. They stepped up behind him, Dean taking out the picture of the mirror to make a comparison.

“That’s it,” Dean said, sighing heavily at what he knew was coming next.

“You sure about this?” Emma asked. In answer, Sam simply handed her the flashlight and heaved his own sigh before he turned to the mirror.

“Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary,” Sam began, glancing over at Dean and Emma before he finished to find them both staring at him with an unsure look. Sam held his crowbar higher before he finished, ready to smash the mirror the minute Mary entered it.

“Bloody Mary,” he finished.

Before Mary could appear in the mirror, they were distracted as a light flowed in through the store windows, Dean and Emma turning to it.

“We’ll go check that out,” Dean said. “Stay here.”

“Be careful,” Emma said as they walked away. Being careful, Sam held a tighter grip on the crowbar.

“Smash anything that moves,” Dean said as he and Emma cautiously rounded the corner. They found the source of the light outside the store. Car headlights.

“Crap,” Dean muttered. Thinking that maybe the crowbar in Dean’s hand looked a little too guilty, Emma took it from him and slid it down the back of a chest of drawers before she and Dean walked towards the door.

@~~>~~~

Back in the shop, Sam stood at the ready with his crowbar, staring straight ahead at Mary’s mirror. But as he heard a breath behind him, he turned to investigate. And as he did, Mary appeared in her own mirror.

@~~>~~~

Outside of the shop, Dean and Emma found that the headlights belonged to a police car.

“Hold it,” one of the officers now stood in front of Dean and Emma said.

“Woah guys, false alarm,” Emma said, raising her hands in a sign of surrender.

“We tripped the system,” Dean finished.

“Who are you?” the officer asked.

“I’m the boss’s kid, this is my girlfriend,” Dean answered.

“You’re Mister Yamashiro’s kid?” the officer asked. Great, there goes that excuse right out of the window!

@~~>~~~

Back inside the shop and Mary was back to mirror hopping. From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Mary and smashed that mirror with a crowbar, forcing her out. She appears in a different mirror, and he smashes that one too. Mary gone, he turned back to her mirror.

“Come on,” Sam whispered into the air. “Come into this one.”

Sam looked oddly at his reflection as suddenly it began to take on a life of it’s own, smiling wickedly and lowering the crowbar. As his reflection stared at him, Sam suddenly had trouble breathing, a trickle of blood leaking from his eye. He dropped the crowbar as he fell to the floor, grabbing at his chest.

“It’s your fault. You killed her,” his reflection told him. “You killed Jessica.”

@~~>~~~

Outside the store, Dean and Emma were still trying to explain their presence to the cops.

“Like I said, I was adopted,” Dean said.

“Yeah,” one cop said as the two cornered Dean and Emma, coming in closely from both sides. Dean looked over at him, who simply shrugged slightly at him, knowing just what he was gonna do.

“You know, we just… we really don’t have time for this right now,” Dean said. Getting rid of the ops the easy way to them, Dean and Emma went for the cops closest to them. Moving in quick motion, Emma elbowed her cop in the face and kicked his feet from under him, while Dean punched and backhanded his cop, both falling to the floor. “Not bad,” Dean said, looking over at Emma.

“You know me. Never was much for authority figures,” Emma said with a smile as she turned back towards the shop, Dean following.

@~~>~~~

Inside the shop and Sam is still struggling against his reflection.

“You never told her the truth. Who you really were,” Sam’s reflection said as Sam continued falling closer to the ground.

“But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” the reflection continued. “Those nightmares you’ve been having of Jessica dying, screaming, burning. You had them for days before she died. Didn’t you!?! You were so desperate to ignore them, to believe they were just dreams. How could you ignore them like that? How could you leave her alone to die!?! You dreamt it would happen!!!”

Before his reflection could say any more, Dean and Emma came running into the room, Emma smashing the crowbar through Mary’s mirror. Sam remained still on the floor, and Emma knelt down beside him, making him look at her.

“Sam, Sammy!” Emma called to him.

“It’s Sam,” Sam said weakly. Smiling with relief, Emma pulled Sam forward and kissed his forehead. Pulling back, Emma saw the blood trickling down Sam’s eyes.

“God, are you okay?” she said, the concern back.

“Uh, yeah,” Sam said. Smiling at him again, Emma gently touched Sam’s cheek as he smiled back at her.

Standing a little away from them, Dean watched the two of them together. It was times like this when it really hit him how close his girlfriend and his baby brother were. He had never seen Emma worry about anyone as much as she did for Sam. They were two of a kind those two, always the ones with the information. So much in common. In the little moments of tenderness like this, he could see how much she cared about him.

And he knew Sam cared about her. He knew deep down that if it wasn’t for Emma, Sam probably wouldn’t have come on the hunt in the first place. When they had first pulled Sam away from college, Emma had gotten a much warmer welcome then he had. And he had expected that. Of all the people, Sam chose to keep in contact with Emma. He knew there was a bond between Sam and Emma he could never break or get into.

Pushing his thoughts aside, Dean moved closer to Sam and Emma.

“Come on, come on,” Dean said as he and Emma helped Sam to his feet. Swinging his arms over their shoulders, they began to slowly walk out of the store. But what they didn’t see behind them was Mary, crawling out of her frame. As the sound of glass cracking met their ears, the three turned to see Mary walking towards them. All three fell to the floor as blood began trickling from their eyes, Mary now extremely pissed.

Thinking fast, Dean weakly reached across and pulled a Mary in front of them, Mary now forced to look at her own reflection.

“You killed them!” her reflection echoed. “All those people! You killed them!”

Like all her victims before her, Mary began to choke, falling towards the ground. Before she could hit the floor, her body melted away, leaving a pile of blood where she stood. Dean threw the mirror forward, shattering it as it fell.

“Hey guys?” Dean said to the two beside him.

“Yeah?” Sam answered.

“This has got to be like… what? 600 years of bad luck?” Dean said. Sam and Emma chuckled weakly as Emma wiped some of the blood from her face.

@~~>~~~

The next morning, Sam, Dean and Emma drove Charlie back to her house.

“So this is really over?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, it’s over,” Dean said with a nod.

“Thank you,” Charlie said softly to the three. Dean reached back and shook her hand gently as she stepped out of the car and began walking back to her house.

“Charlie?” Sam called to her, and she turned round. “Your boyfriend’s death… you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn’t have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen.”

Charlie smiled faintly as she turned back towards her house. Emma pulled forward in the back, leaning against Sam’s chair.

“That’s good advice,” she said softly into his ear. Sam smiled weakly as Emma sat back and Dean drove off.

“Hey Sam?” Dean said once they had been driving for a few minutes.

“Yeah?” Sam answered.

“Now that this is all over, I want you to tell us what that secret is,” Dean said.

“Look… you guys are my family and I’d die for either you,” Sam said truthfully. “But there are some things I need to keep to myself.”

Turning away from Dean and Emma, Sam held his attention on the street passing him by through the window. And the first thing that caught his eyes was Jessica, standing on the corner of the street in a white dress. Sam tried to keep his eyes on her, but as they turned the corner, she vanished. Sam continued to stare out of the window, wondering what had just happened. Had he really just seen Jessica, or was it his mind? The thought of his dead girlfriend was all that dominated his mind as they continued to drive.


	6. Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean and Emma come to the aid of Sam's old college buddy after he is accused of a murder he swears he didn't commit. The three discover a shape shifter is adopting the likenesses of others and murdering people. The groups race to stop the shape shifter takes a terrifying turn when he shifts into the likeness of Dean and chooses Emma as his next victim.

Inside a hotel room in St. Louis, Missouri, a young brunette woman is unconscious on the floor, face down. Her attacker stands a few feet away, examining a rather deadly looking knife.

Outside the motel room, a S.W.A.T team had arrived, quietly making their way to the building. The team blast into the room beside, searching through room one by one.  
Inside the apposing room, the man grabs the girl by her back, lifting her from the floor just as he hears the sound of the S.W.A.T team in the next room.

The S.W.A.T team now enter the room, finding the girl unconscious but no attacker.

“We’ve found the victim,” one officer calls as the rest move to the back of the hotel rooms. Outside the attacker is stood beside a gate, trying to get over it.

“Freeze!” the officers yell. “Don’t move! Drop the knife. Keep your hands where I can see ‘em. Drop it! Hold it right there! Do it!”

The attacker turns to the police, revealing his identity.

Dean Winchester.

@~~>~~~

One Week Earlier  
Sam, Dean and Emma drive into a gas station, filling up for their journey.

“Alright,” Dean said as he pulled the car to a stop. “I figure we’d hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by midnight.” Dean turns to his brother, but it is apparent he is not listening.

“Sam wears women’s underwear,” Dean said, trying to get his brothers attention.

“I’ve been listenin’, I’m just busy,” Sam said, still not looking over at Dean. He has his PalmPilot out, checking through his e-mails.

“Busy doin’ what?” Dean asked as he got out of the car.

“Reading e-mails.”

“E-mails from who?” Dean asked as he moved to Sam’s side of the car to fill up the tank.

“From my friends at Stanford.”

“You’re kidding. You still keep in touch with your college buddies?”

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em?” Dean said. “You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?”

“I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother and his girlfriend. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.”

“Oh, so you lie to ‘em,” Emma said.

“No. I just don’t tell ‘em…. Everything,” Sam said.

“Yeah, that’s called lying,” Emma said with a smile.

“I mean, hey, man, I get it,” Dean said. “Tellin’ the truth is far worse.”

“So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life?” Sam said. Dean just shrugged, and that was enough of an answer for Sam. “You’re serious?”

“Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people outside of us, period.”

“You’re kind of anti-social, you know that?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean said, turning away from his brother as Sam went back to checking his e-mails.

“God….” Sam muttered as he continued to read.

“What?” Dean asked, turning back to him.

“In this e-mail from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those friends of mine.”

“Is she hot?” Dean asked, earning himself a smack from Emma and was simply ignored by Sam.

“I went to school with her, and her brother, Zack. She says Zack’s been charged with murder. He’s been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn’t do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case.”

“Dude, what kind of people are you hangin’ out with?” Dean said.

“No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.”

“Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you,” Dean said pointedly.

“They’re in St. Louis. We’re goin’,” Sam said, which got a chuckle from Dean.

“Look, sorry ‘bout your buddy, okay? But this does not sound like our kind of problem.”

“It is our problem. They’re my friends.”

“St. Louis is four hundred miles behind us, Sam.” Sam didn’t say anything. He just stared at Dean. And a few minutes later, Dean pulled angrily out of the gas station, heading to St. Louis.

@~~>~~~

Having been forced to give in to Sam’s wishes, Sam, Dean and Emma were now stood outside Rebecca’s house. Rebecca answered the door, smiling as she saw Sam.

“Oh my God, Sam!” she exclaimed.

“Well, if it isn’t little Becky,” Sam said with a smile.

“You know what you can do with that little Becky crap,” Rebecca said, smiling wider as her and Sam hugged.

“I got your e-mail,” Sam said as they pulled away.

“I didn’t think that you would come here,” Rebecca said as Dean stepped forward.

“Dean. Older brother,” he said, extending his hand to her which she shook.

“Hi,” they both said. Once Dean had backed up, Emma stepped forward as Rebecca’s eyes fell on her.

“Hey. Emma. Older brother’s girlfriend,” she said.

“Hey,” Rebecca greeted.

“We’re here to help,” Sam said now the introductions were over. “Whatever we can do.”

“Come in,” Rebecca said, stepping aside for the three to come inside.

“Nice place,” Dean said as they walked through the rather large house.

“It’s my parents’,” Rebecca told them. “I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened. I decided to take the semester off. I’m gonna stay until Zack’s free.”

“Where are your folks?” Sam asked.

“They live in Paris for half the year, so they’re on their way home now for the trial,” Rebecca said as they stepped into the kitchen. “Do you guys want a beer or something?”

“Hey….” Dean began with a smile.

“No, thanks,” Sam cut him off. “So, tell us what happened.”

“Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn’t breathing,” Rebecca began, but stopped as she began to cry.

“So, he called 911,” Rebecca continued. “And the police, they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way that Zack could’ve killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police—they have a video. It’s from the security tape from across the street. And it shows Zack coming home at 10:30. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight.”

“You know, maybe we could see the crime scene,” Sam said. “Zack’s house.”

“We could,” Emma said.

“Why? I mean, what could you do?” Rebecca asked.

“Well, me, not much. But Dean and Emma are cops,” Sam said. At his comment, Dean and Emma looked up at Rebecca and laughed nervously.

“Detectives, actually,” Dean said.

“Really?” Rebecca asked, to which Dean nodded. “Where?”

“Bisbee, Arizona,”’ Emma answered off the top of her head. “But we’re off-duty now.”

“You guys, it’s so nice to offer, but I just… I don’t know,” Rebecca said.

“Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this,” Sam said. “Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.”

“Okay,” Rebecca said, seeing Sam’s point of view. “I’m gonna go get the keys.” The three watched as she walked out of the room.

“Oh, yeah, you’re a real straight shooter with your friends,” Emma said, her and Dean stepping in front of Sam once Rebecca was out of near shot.

“Look, Zack and Becky need our help,” Sam said.

“I just don’t think this is our kind of problem,” Dean said.

“Two places at once? We’ve looked into less,” Sam told him. Dean didn’t say anything, knowing that his brother was at least right in that one.

@~~>~~~

The group now pulled up outside of Zack’s house, getting out of the car to cross the road.

“You’re sure this is okay?” Rebecca said, turning to Dean as she got out of the car.

“Yeah. We are officers of the law,” Dean said, looking pointedly back at Sam as they walked to the house. Ignoring the police tape, Sam, Dean and Emma ducked under it and walked into the house. Everywhere was smeared with blood. The walls, the furniture, everywhere. Hearing a small whimper, Sam turned to see that Rebecca was still stood on the porch steps.

“Bec, you wanna wait outside?” Sam said.

“No. I wanna help,” Rebecca said, ducking under the police tape and standing beside Sam.

“Tell us what else the police said,” Sam said.

“Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers, they’re already talking about plea bargain.” Rebecca looked round the room, at all the blood splattered about, and couldn’t help it when she began to cry softly.

“Look, Bec, if Zack didn’t do this, it means someone else did. Any idea who?” In answer, Rebecca shook her head before she remembered something.

“Um, there was something, about a week before,” Rebecca said. “Somebody broke in here and stole some clothes, Zack’s clothes. The police, they don’t think it’s anything. I mean, we’re not that far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed.”

Nodding, Sam walked away to investigate the rest of the house. Dean and Emma had moved to the open front door, looking out to see the neighbours dog barking loudly.

“You know, that used to be the sweetest dog,” Rebecca said as she stepped up behind them.

“What happened?” Dean asked.

“He just changed,” Rebecca said.

“Do you remember when he changed?” Dean asked.

“I guess around the time of the murder,” Rebecca said, Dean looked at her before he and Emma walked over to Sam who was stood by the fridge, looking at a picture of him, Zack and Rebecca that was stuck on with magnets.

“So,” Emma said, knocking him back to reality. “The neighbour’s dog went psycho right around the time Zack’s girlfriend was killed.”

“Animals can have a sharp sense of the paranormal,” Sam said.

“Yeah, maybe Fido saw somethin’,” Emma said.

“So, you think maybe this is our kind of problem?” Sam said to his brother.

“No. Probably not,” Dean said. “But we should look at the security tape, you know, just to make sure.”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a smug smile.

“Yeah,” Dean said as Rebecca walked over to them.

“So, the tape,” Dean said to Rebecca as she stopped beside them. “The security footage. You think maybe your lawyers could get their hands on it, ‘cause we just don’t have that kind of jurisdiction.”

“I’ve already got it. I didn’t wanna say something in front of the cops,” Rebecca said guiltily, to which Dean laughed. “I stole it off the lawyer’s desk. I just had to see it for myself.”

“All right,” Dean said as the four of the walked out of the house.

@~~>~~~

On a nearby street, Zack was sat on a bench, watching as a couple walked out of their house, saying goodbye as the husband was on his way to a business trip.

“I’ll be home tomorrow night. I’ll make it up to you,” the guy said as he kissed his wife.

“You better,” she said, smiling as he got into his car and drove away. Zack watched as the woman walked back into the house. He smiled wickedly, his eyes glinting silver for a moment before turning back to normal.

@~~>~~~

Back at Rebecca’s house, Sam, Dean, Emma and Rebecca were sat in the living room watching the security footage from outside Zack’s house.

“Here he comes,” Rebecca said as Zack walked onto the screen. Dean looked down at the timestamp on the bottom.

“22:04, that’s just after ten,” Dean said. “You said time of death was about 10:30.”

“Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert,” Rebecca said. “He says the tape’s authentic. It wasn’t tampered with.”

Still watching the tape, Emma noticed something as Zack walked past the screen. Elbowing Sam, she motioned for him to get Rebecca to leave. Sam clicked on quickly.

“Hey, Bec, can we take those beers now?” Sam asked.

“Oh, sure,” Rebecca said, standing and heading for the kitchen.

“Hey,” he said, and she turned to look at him.“Maybe some sandwiches, too?”

“What do you think this is, Hooters?” she asked with a laugh as she left the room. Once she was gone, Dean looked down at Emma sat beside him.

“I wish,” he mumbled. Emma glared at him, but there was still a small smile on her lips as they walked towards where Sam was standing.

“What is it?” Dean asked.

“Check this out,” Emma said, taking the remote from Sam. She rewound the tape a little then played it back. Emma paused the tape on an image of Zack looking directly into the camera. His eyes are shining silver.

“Well, maybe it’s just a camera flare,” Dean said.

“That’s not like any camera flare I’ve ever seen,” Emma said. “You know, a lot of cultures believe that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul.”

“Right,” Dean said.

“Remember that dog that was freakin’ out?” Emma continued. “Maybe he saw this thing. Maybe this is some kind of dark double of Zack’s, something that looks like him but isn’t him.”

“Like a Doppelganger,” Sam suggested.

“Yeah,” Emma said.

“It’d sure explain how he was two places at once,” Sam finished.

@~~>~~~

Back at the house the supposed Zack had been watching this morning, the man was just arriving back from his business trip early.

“Honey, it’s me. Client cancelled at the last minute,” he called into the apartment as he set down his briefcase and keys. “I called. Why didn’t you answer?” His wife doesn’t respond.

“Lindsay?” he called looking round. “Lindsay?” he turned again, this time to see blood splattered on the wall.

“Lindsay?!” he called again, becoming more worried with each minute he doesn’t find her. Walking into a nearby room, he finds Lindsay tied to a chair, bloody and beaten. He quickly rushes over to her, taking the gag from her mouth.

“Its ok, Lindsay, it’s me,” he said, trying to comfort her.

“Please, don’t hurt me anymore!” Lindsay manages to say through her sobs. “Leave me alone!”

Her husband stares at her, confused at her words. He’s just arrived home and found her like this. How could she think it was him who had done this to her. Hearing a noise in the other room, he immediately went to investigate.

Looking round the room, he suddenly turns to find an exact replica of himself standing in front of him, holding a baseball bat. The man’s confusion increase as his double’s eyes glint silver and he hits him hard across the head with the bat.

@~~>~~~

Early next morning, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up outside the back of Zack’s house. The three get out of the car, Sam seemingly the only one awake as the other two stand wearily with cups of coffee.

“Alright, so what are we doin’ here at 5:30 in the morning?” Emma asked as Sam walked over to the house.

“I realized something,” he said. “The videotape shows the killer goin’ in, but not comin’ out.”

“So, he came out the back door?” Dean said, leaning against the hood of his car.

“Right,” Sam said. “So, there should be a trail to follow. A trail the police would never pursue.”

“ ‘Cause they think the killer never left. And they caught your friend Zack inside,” Dean said.

“I still don’t know what we’re doin’ here at 5:30 in the morning,” Emma mumbled again, leaning against the car beside Dean, closing her eyes and leaning into his shoulder. Dean just let her lie there, drinking his coffee while Sam continued to search round the back of the house. He soon noticed a smear of blood on a nearby telephone pole.

“Blood,” he said, to which Emma looked up for a second before leaning back against Dean. “Somebody came this way.

“Yeah, but the trail ends. I don’t see anything over here,” Dean said. Their conversation was cut short as an ambulance drove past them, sirens blaring. Opening her eyes and looking up, Emma shared a look with the two brothers.

@~~>~~~

A few minutes later, Sam, Dean and Emma were round the front of the house, observing the scene. They watched as the man from last night was placed into a police car, handcuffed.

“What happened?” Dean asked a nearby woman.

“He tried to kill his wife,” the woman said. “Tied her up and beat her.”

“Really?” Dean said.

“I used to see him going to work in the morning,” the woman continued to tell them as they watched the man taken away. “He’d wave, say hello. He seemed like such a nice guy.”

@~~>~~~

With a new house and a new case to explore, Sam was now at the side of the house that had become the new crime scene. He looked round, opening up the garbage bins, but found nothing. He moved round to the front of the house.

“Hey,” Dean called as he and Emma walked up behind Sam. “Remember when I said this wasn’t our kind of problem?”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Definitely our kind of problem,” Dean finished.

“What’d you find out?” Sam asked.

“Well, we just talked to the patrolman who was first on the scene, heard this guy, Alex’s story. Apparently the dude was driving home from a business trip when his wife was attacked.”

“So, he was two places at once.”

“Exactly,” Dean said. “Then he sees himself in the house, police think he’s a nutjob.”

“Two dark doubles attacking loved ones in exactly the same way,” Sam said.

“Could be the same thing doin’ it, too,” Emma said pointedly. Sam thought for a second before the idea came to him.

“Shapeshifter?” he asked. Emma shrugged her answer. “Something that can make itself look like anyone?”

“Every culture in the world has a shapeshifter lore,” Emma said. “You know, legends of creatures who can transform themselves into animals or other men.”

“Right, skinwalkers, werewolves,” Sam said.

“We’ve got two attacks within blocks of each other,’ Emma said. “I’m guessin’ we’ve got a shapeshifter prowlin’ the neighbourhood.”

“Let me ask you this. In all this shapeshifter lore, can any of them fly?” Sam asked.

“Not that I know of,” Dean answered.

“I picked up a trail here. Someone ran out the back of this building and headed off this way,” Sam said.

“Just like your friend’s house,” Dean said.

“Yeah. And, just like at Zack’s house, the trail suddenly ends. I mean, whatever it is just disappeared.”

“Well, there’s another way to go,” Dean said. “Down.” And all three looked down at the manhole below them. The sewers.

@~~>~~~

A few minutes later and that’s where they were. Climbing down into the sewer. Dean climbed down first, guiding Emma down beside him.

“I hate you,” Emma said as they looked round at their surroundings. “You know that, right?”

“Aww, don’t say that babes,” Dean said with a smile as Sam dropped beside them.

“I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too,” Sam said, looking round. “The shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around.”

“I think you’re right. Look at this,” Dean said as he walked off into a tunnel. He bent down next to a pile of blood and skin on the ground, Sam and Emma following. All they’ve seen, and this was still totally disgusting.

“Is this from his victims?” Sam asked.

“You know, I just had a sick thought,” Dean said, poking about at the pile with his pocket knife. “When the shapeshifter changes shape, maybe it sheds.”

“That is sick,” Emma said as Dean dropped the piece of ickyness he had on his pocket knife.

@~~>~~~

Now out of the sewers and away from the pile of disgustingness, they were stood by the trunk of the car, Dean now poking through the weapons.

“Well, one thing I learned from Dad, is that no matter what kind of shapeshifter it is, there’s one sure way to kill it,” Dean said.

“Silver bullet to the heart,” Emma said.

“That’s right,” Dean answered just as Sam’s cell phone rang.

“This is Sam,” he said in answer.

“Where are you?” Rebecca asked from the other end.

“We’re near Zack’s, we’re just checkin’ some things out,” Sam answered.

“Well, look, Sam, just stop, ‘cause I really don’t need your help anymore,” Rebecca said, and Sam could hear the change in her voice.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Sam asked.

“I told the lawyers that we went to the crime scene,” Rebecca said. Sam scoffed slightly. Busted.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“Well, I told them that we were with a police officer. And they checked it out, and they told me that there is no Detective Dean Winchester or Detective Emma Grey.”

“Bec….” Sam began.

“No,” Rebecca cut him off. “I don’t understand why you would lie to me about something like that.”

“We’re tryin’ to help,” Sam said.

“Oh, trying to help?” Rebecca clearly getting more and more annoyed with each explanation Sam tried to giver her. “Do you realize that that was a sealed crime scene? This could have just ruined Zack’s case.”

“Bec, I’m sorry, but….”

“No, goodbye, Sam,” Rebecca said, cutting him off again and hanging up the phone. Sam hung up his end as well, clearly disappointed as Dean and Emma walked up to him.

“I hate to say it, but that’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about,” Dean said. “You lie to your friends because if they knew the real you, they’d be freaked. It’s just… it’d be easier if….”

“If I was like you,” Sam cut in, the disappointment in his voice.

“Hey, man, like it or not, we are not like other people. But I’ll tell you one thing. This whole gig, it ain’t without perks,” Dean finished as he held a gun out to Sam. He took it, slipping it in the back of his jeans as they walked away.

@~~>~~~

The trio made their way back to the sewers, searching round for the creature or it’s lair. They were searching for a good while before they coma across any sort of indication that they might be getting close.

“I think we’re close to its lair,” Dean said.

“Why do you say that?” Emma asked.

“Because there’s another puke-inducing pile next to your face,” Dean said simply. Emma turned to see another pile of blood and skin on a nearby pipe right beside her face.

“Oh, God!” she said, backing away and over to Dean. They looked a little further and found a pile of clothes in a corner.

“Looks like it’s lived here for a while,” Dean said.

“Who knows how many murders he’s gotten away with?” Sam said. He turned to find the shapeshifter, still in the form of the guy from this mourning, standing behind and Dean and Emma.

“Guys!” Sam called, and both looked round to see the shapeshifter. Emma ducked in time as the shapeshifter punched Dean, sending him into the wall and to the floor. Sam shot after it several time at it ran away, but he missed. With the shapeshifter gone round the corner, he and Emma moved over to Dean.

“Get the son of a bitch!” Dean called, and Sam and Emma ran off, closely followed by Dean. They followed the shapeshifter out to another manhole, him getting a head start on them as he climbed up and ran off. Sam, Dean and Emma climbed up a minute later.

“All right, let’s split up,” Sam said once they were all above the surface.

“All right. Emma, you go back to the motel,” Dean said.

“What?” Emma said. “You’re kidding right?”

“No,” Dean started simply. “Emma, please. Just go back to the motel and see if you can find out anything that might help us.” Sighing angrily but giving in, Emma turned away from the boys and walked away.

With Emma gone, Dean turned to Sam, and the look on his face told him not to question his actions. The truth behind them was, if they were separated, one of them could run into this thing and end up in a not so pleasant situation where the shapeshift6er ended taking your identity. And god knows what it would do then. Dean didn’t wanna put Emma in that situation, or any situation where him or Sam were the shapeshifters.

“I’ll meet you around the other side,” he told his brother.

“All right,” Sam said, asking no questions and both of them taking off in different directions.

Dean searched down the alleys his gun drawn and the passersby turning away in fright. Sam on the other hand, searched through the crowded streets, his gun hidden inside his jacket. Both came up with nothing.

@~~>~~~

After finding nothing, Sam stood on the street corner, waiting for Dean to meet up with him.

“Hey,” his brother’s voice echoed from behind him and Sam turned to find Dean running towards him. “Anything?”

“No. He’s gone,” Sam answered.

“All right, let’s get back to the car,” Dean said. Sam crossed the street while Dean stopped to let a car pass by. As the headlights hit Dean’s eyes, they momentarily glowed silver as he followed Sam. Looks like Dean’s fears had been right.

@~~>~~~

Back at the back alleys of the street, Sam and the shapeshifter in Dean’s form walked towards the car.

“You think he found another way underground?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, probably,” the shapeshifter said. “You got the keys?” Sam stood still, thinking for a moment before he turned round. Dean hadn’t even suggested going to look for this thing, or getting in touch with Emma.

“Hey, didn’t Dad once face a shapeshifter in San Antonio?” Sam asked, trying to catch him out.

“Oh, that was Austin,” the shapeshifter said confidentially. “It turned out not to be a shapeshifter, it was a thought form. A psychic projection, remember?”

“Oh, right. Here ya go,” Sam said, chucking him the keys, which he caught with his left hand. While Sam walked to the front of the car, the shapeshifter opened the trunk, looking sat all the weapons with a smile on his face.

“Don’t move!” Sam’s voice said from behind him, and the shapeshifter looked up to find Sam pointing a gun at him. “What have you done with him?”

“Dude, chill. It’s me, all right?” the shapeshifter said calmly.

“No, I don’t think so. Where’s my brother?” Sam said.

“You’re about to shoot him,” the shapeshifter said, his hands raised slightly in the air and pointing down at the gun. “Sam, calm down.”

“You caught those keys with your left. Your shoulder was hurt.”

“Yeah, it’s better. What do you want me to do, cry?”

“You’re not my brother.”

“Why don’t you pull the trigger, then? Hm?” But Sam didn’t, and the shapeshifter saw his hesitation. “‘Cause you’re not sure. Dude, you know me.”

“Don’t,” Sam said menacingly. Staring at the younger Winchester for a second, the shapeshifter suddenly hit Sam twice across the head with a crowbar, watching as he fell to the floor.

@~~>~~~

What must have been a good hour later, Sam woke up in a dingy and dusty room somewhere he didn’t recognise. He tried to move, but found that his neck and his hands were bound to some sort of pole. Hearing Sam awake, the shapeshifter walked over to him, staring him in the eyes before he4 backhanded him hard across the face. Sam groaned as he walked away.

“Where is he? Where’s Dean?” Sam asked, trying his best to watch where the shapeshifter was going and what he was doing.

“I wouldn’t worry about him. I’d worry about you,” the shapeshifter said, coming back into view.

“Where is he?” Sam repeated.

“You don’t really wanna know,” the shapeshifter said with a chuckle. “I swear, the more I learn about you and your family. I thought I came from a bad background.”

“What do you mean, learn?” Sam asked. Before he could answer, the shapeshifter grimaced and grabbed his head in pain. Sam looks over at the shapeshifter with confusion as more memories of the trio’s life flow into his mind. Once they had finished, the shapeshifter turned to Sam again.

“He’s sure got issues with you,” the shapeshifter said as he walked towards Sam. “You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?”

“Where is my brother?” Sam asked again.

“I am your brother,” the shapeshifter shouted into Sam’s face, leaning closer to him. “See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Sam asked as the shapeshifter backed away.

“You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. Well, there is Emma. But sooner or later, she’ll leave. I mean, it’s not like I treat her right. Not like you would,” the shapeshifter turned to Sam again, moving closer to him.

“I mean, you’re just so nice to her. Like a guy should be. And you know what? It kills your brother to see the way the two of you are. I don’t think he’d ever blame her if she left. But still, this life? It’s not without its perks,” he finished with a sharp laugh.

“I get to be with the nicest people, just like Emma. You know, Dean actually cares about the girl. I wonder what he’d do if she wasn’t around. Let’s see,” he said, smiling at Sam once more before covering him with a sheet and walking out.

@~~>~~~

Since the boys had sent her back to the motel, Emma had sat on her bed with her laptop open, researching shapeshifters. And she had come up with nothing they didn’t already know, and nothing that would be helpful. She was glad for the distraction when she heard the knock on the door. Closing her laptop and jumping off the bed to answer the door, the shapeshifter, still in the form of Dean, stood on the other side.

“Hey,” she said with a smile, opening the door wider to let him in. “You find the shapeshifter?”

“No. He got away, so Sam went over to make up with Rebecca. You find anything?”

@~~>~~~

Back in the shapeshifters lair, Sam was still unsuccessfully tryi8ng to work his way out of the ropes binding his hands.

“Damn it,” he swore as he got more agitated. There is suddenly the sound of movement from the other side of room and Sam hears someone coughing.

“That better be you, Sam, and not that freak of nature,” Dean’s voice echoed from behind him.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Sam said with a small laugh of relief as Dean managed to uncover himself from the sheet thrown over him. “He went to Emma, lookin’ like you.”

“Well, he’s not stupid,” Dean said as he tried to work on his ropes. “He picked the handsome one.” Sam turned as far as he could, giving out a confused look before he went back to trying to untie his ropes.

@~~>~~~

Back in the motel room, Emma had moved her laptop to the table and, with the shapeshifter stood behind her, was telling everything she had found out.

“So, Emma began, motioning towards what she had found from the internet. “There are about twenty different shapeshifter lores in about twenty different cultures. You’ll never get the right one first off.”

“Well, any with similarities to this case,” the shapeshifter asked

“I checked. There are only about a handful of cases where the shapeshifter sheds afterwards,” Emma said, a grossed out look coming across her face. Clearly seeing an article that looked somewhat familiar, the shapeshifter pointed towards the computer screen.

“What about that one?” it asked.

“Yeah, that fits,” Emma said, opening the link and reading from it. “It says that some shapeshifters are born through mutation.”

“What, are we talking, X-Men here?” the shapeshifter joked, trying to keep up his persona as Dean.”

“Sort of,” Emma said, laughing gently. “Evolution is about mutation, right? So, they say that this creature was born human, but it was different. Like, genetically deformed or something. So, the creature learnt to be like someone else. It evolved.”

With her back turned to the shapeshifter and her concentration on the computer, Emma didn’t notice the wicked smile slide across his lips, or the silver glow in his eyes.

@~~>~~~

Back in the shapeshifter’s lair, Sam and Dean were still trying to work through their ropes.

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Sam was saying. “He didn’t just look like you, he was you. Or he was becoming you.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, finally working his way out of his ropes.

“I don’t know, it was like he was downloading your thoughts and memories.”

“You mean, like the Vulcan mind meld?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that,” Sam said as Dean walked over to him. “I mean, maybe that’s why he doesn’t just kill us.”

“Maybe he needs to keep us alive,” Dean said as he untied his brother. “Psychic connection.”

“Hands,” Sam told his brother. “Yeah. Come on, we gotta go. He’s probably with Emma already.”

Finding a way out onto the street, Sam and Dean crawled out of a grating and up onto the street.

“Come on. We gotta find a phone, call the police,” Sam said as he began to walk off.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean said, stopping his brother in his tracks. “You’re gonna put an APB out on me.”

“Sorry,” Sam said with a shrug.

“This way,” Dean said as they both took off down the street.

@~~>~~~

Back at the motel, Emma had now closed her laptop and turned in her chair, facing the still standing Dean shaped shapeshifter.

“It’s funny. I kind of understand him,” the shapeshifter said.

“That’s a new one for you,” Emma said with a small smile. “How do you understand it?”

“I mean, he’s all alone, close to no one,” the shapeshifter said, too much emotion in his voice. “All he wants is for someone to love him. He’s like me.” Watching him closely, Emma stood, walking towards him.

“You’re not alone,” Emma said, slipping her arms round his waist. “You’ve got people who love you.”

“I know,” the shapeshifter said, hugging her back gently. “But everybody needs a little human touch now and then. It’s so hard to be different.” Looking down at the girl close to him, the shapeshifter tucked a piece of hair gently behind her ear, watching as she smiled sweetly.

“So what if you’re different,” Emma said. “You’ve always got me and Sam.”

“Yeah,” the shapeshifter said, smiling at her and pulling her closer. Posing as this guy could have some advantages, he thought as his lips met Emma’s. But not for long as Emma’s eyes suddenly went wide and she pulled away, backing up from him.

“What’s wrong?” the shapeshifter said, trying to keep up the act.

“You. There’s something different,” Emma said. Her eyes got wider and there was more fear behind them as it suddenly hit her. “You’re not you.”

Emma kept her eyes on the thing in front of her as a wicked and very un-Dean like smile spread across his lips.

“Clever girl,” he said before quickly backhanding her across the face, knocking her to the floor. Quickly recovering and turning back to him, Emma gasped as his eyes glinted silver.

Her eyes still locked on the shapeshifter now she knew what it was, Emma watched as he turned his back to her, pulling something from his pocket that was hidden from Emma’s view.

“You’re a nice girl, Emma,” he said. “I mean, I’ve known you for a few minutes, and I really liked you. Believe me, that makes this harder.” The shapeshifter turned to her and Emma now saw exactly what was in his hands as it glistened in the light. It was a rather dangerous looking knife.

“But I gotta do what I gotta do,” he finished as he walked towards her. As he plunged the knife down to make contact with Emma, she rolled away, standing up behind him.

“You forgot, you’re not dealing with any old girl,” Emma said, her confidence fully restored.

“Oh, really?” the shapeshifter said, turning to face her.

“Yeah. I learnt from the best,” Emma said.

“Yeah. From me,” the shapeshifter said.

“No. From Dean,” Emma corrected, menace in her voice.

“That’s me. So let’s see how good really you are,” the shapeshifter said before he came at her, throwing countless kicks and blows her way. Emma easily blocked each one, pushing the shapeshifter away from her.

“You’re good,” the shapeshifter said as Emma smiled smugly his way. Before Emma had chance to block him, the shapeshifter threw a punch at her, knocking her onto the bed. “I’m better,” he finished as Emma turned to him.

“This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you,” Emma said, swinging her legs from the bed. Each foot made contact with the shapeshifter before she landed gracefully on her feet. Laughing at her attempts, the shapeshifter advanced on her. Not letting him come any closer, Emma kicked him heavily in the stomach, knocking him haphazardly into a chair. “Where’s my boyfriend?” Emma asked, looming over him.

“Right her babes,” the shapeshifter said, standing up and walking towards her. Knocking him away from her, Emma punched him in the jaw.

“I said, where’s Dean?” she repeated.

“You know, you really wanna stop hitting me,” the shapeshifter said with an evil smile.

“Really?” Emma said, not taking his advice and backhanding him across the face.

“You little bitch,” the shapeshifter said, the force turning his face away as he massaged his jaw where she had hit it.

“Are you gonna tell me where he is or not?” Emma said, stood still in her fighting position, waiting for him to come back at her. She waited while the shapeshifter stayed quiet, turning to her. Ready to try and beat it out of him again, Emma aimed a kick his way. But the shapeshifter was too quick this time, catching her foot in mid air.

“Not,” he answered, pulling her foot from under her. Emma went sailing backwards, her head hitting heavily against the corner of the table and knocking her unconscious. The shapeshifter knelt down beside her unconscious figure.

“Now this is one perk of this skin I will miss,” he said, picking Emma up and kissing her before dropping her heavily back down. Picking up the knife she had knocked away from him during the fight, the shapeshifter stood over her, ready to finish the job. Before he could, he heard the sound of crashing from the next room as the S.W.A.T team entered.

Trying to make his escape, the shapeshifter left Emma and exited through the bathroom window. But he didn’t get too far before the S.W.A.T team found him trying to climb over the gate at the back of the motel.

“Freeze!” one of the officers called to him. “Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Drop the knife!”

Turning to them, the shapeshifter threw his knife at the officer calling to him as the rest began shooting sat him. Kicking away the officer blocking his way, the shapeshifter jumped over the gate, running out into the street.

“Come on! Come on! Go! Go!” the officer called as the shapeshifter ran, the officers in chase. But he got away, slinking down into the sewers. With the body he was posing as now on the run from the police, the shapeshifter screamed and groaned in pain as he shed his skin.

@~~>~~~

Sam and Dean still on the run, they had now stopped outside an electronics store, watching the news report through the window.

“An anonymous tip led police to a motel in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a woman,” the news reporter was saying. “The woman was unconscious on the scene but officers managed to revive her. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in the motel.”

As the report came to an end, a rough sketch on Dean came up on the screen.

“Man! That’s not even a good picture,” Dean said, not paying attention to the people around him, but Sam was.

“It’s good enough,” Sam said, walking away.

“Man!” Dean repeated as he followed Sam down a side alley. Not watching where he was going, Dean walked right through a puddle.

“Come on!” he called, this really not being his day.

“They said attempted murder,” Sam said. “At least we know….”

“I didn’t kill her!” Dean cut in, yelling towards his brother.

“The report said she refused to go to hospital, typical Emma. So let’s go check, see if she’s all right,” Sam said as he walked off in the direction of their motel.

“All right, but I wanna find that handsome devil and kick the holy crap out of him,” Dean said, causing Sam to stop in his tracks.

“We have no weapons,” Sam said, stopping Dean in front of him. “No silver bullets.”

“Sam, the guy’s walkin’ around with my face and he attacked my girlfriend, okay. It’s a little personal, I wanna find him.”

“Okay,” Sam said, sort of seeing his point. “Where do we look?”

“Well, we could start with the sewers,” Dean suggested.

“We have no weapons. He stole our guns, we need more,” Sam said as they both paused to think. “The car?” Sam finished.

“I’m bettin’ he drove over to the motel,” Dean said, thinking along the same wave length.

“The news said he fled on foot. I bet it’s still parked there.”

“The thought of him drivin’ my car,” Dean said, that suddenly getting to him

“All right, come on,” Sam said as they started walking away.

“It’s killin’ me,” Dean continued.

“Let it go,” Sam said before he could take it any further. After a minute of walking in silence, Sam decided to say something that had been bugging him every since he had witnessed the shapeshifter Dean. “Dean, can I ask you a question?” Sam asked his brother.

“Shoot, Sammy,” Dean said.

“It’s just something that thing said, with your memories, about Emma,” Sam began.

“What?” Dean asked.

“Well….” Sam said, trying to think of the best way he could get round this. “Something along the lines that you don’t think you deserve the girl… but I do. It’s not true, is it Dean?” Dean didn’t answer but stayed quiet, which was enough for Sam.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Why, Dean?”

“Sam, can we just go and find Emma and discuss this at a later date,” Dean said, trying to avoid the subject. “A very later date.”

“Dean, you know Emma does care about you….” Sam started.

“Sam, I just said….”

“I’m gonna say this Dean,” Sam cut in, making his brother listen. “She does. And when it comes to me and her, she’s like the sister I never had. Plain and simple. And I know you care about her.”

“Sam….”

“Oh, don’t deny it Dean,” Sam said before he could. “That was another thing the shapeshifter said.” Sam light a slight silence hang in the air before he continued.

“But I gotta say, you are right about one thing.”

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“You do not deserve a girl like her,” Sam said as he quickened his pace, walking in front of Dean.

@~~>~~~

Sam and Dean made their way to the motel, turning the corner to find Dean’s car parked in the lot.

“Oh, there she is!” Dean said with relief. “Finally, something went right tonight.” Sam and Dean headed towards the car just as a police car parked up beside it, sirens blaring.

“Oh, crap,” Dean muttered, turning to see another police car blocking his escape.

“This way, this way,” Dean called, running towards a fence behind the motel.

“You go. I’ll hold ‘em off,” Sam said, not moving.

“What are you talking about? They’ll catch you.”

“Look, they can’t hold me. Just go, keep out of sight. Meet me at the motel.” Giving in to Sam’s reason, Dean started climbing over the fence.

“Dean,” Sam called, causing Dean to stop climbing and turn to him.“Stay out of the sewers alone.”

Dean said nothing. He just continued to climb over the fence, hopping down on the opposite side.

“I mean it!” Sam called after him.

“Yeah, yeah!” Sam called back as he ran for cover.

“Don’t move!” the officers yelled as they got out of the4 car and headed towards Sam. “Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

Sam did, raising his hands into the air as he stared after where his brother had just vanished.

@~~>~~~

Next mourning and Dean was cleaned up and stood by his car, raiding the trunks for weapons as he ignored Sam’s warning.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Dean said to himself. “But you know me. I just can’t wait.”

Closing the trunk, Dean made his way into the sewers, now prepared. Looking round all the different tunnels, Dean finally found himself in a chamber filled with candles and chains. Revolting piles of the malted skin lay around the floor, telling Dean this was most definitely the creatures lair. Hearing a noise, Dean moved into a small section beside the chamber to find a figure covered with a sheet. Removing the sheet, Dean came face to face with Emma, her hands and feet bound in front of her.

“Emma?” he said softly, his voice etched with both relief and concern. Relief at the fact that his girlfriend was alive and somewhat safe, but concern over the fact of where Sam was now. And more importantly, who he was with.

@~~>~~~

At the motel room, Sam was sat in the motel room sitting with who he though was Emma.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. Come on, this is me Sammy. I gave as good as I got,” the shapeshifter said. Sam laughed gently. “So, you guys figure how to stop this thing yet?” it asked. Sam sighed, not thinking that Emma asked how to kill this thing, when she already knew, was a little bit odd.

“Silver bullet to the heart,” Sam said.

“Really?” the shapeshifter said with a chuckle. And before Sam could move, she hit him across the head with the handle of one of their guns. Sam fell sideways, falling unconscious as the shapeshifter’s eyes glowed silver.

@~~>~~~

Back in the sewers, Dean was with the real Emma, untying her hands and feet.

“What happened?” Dean asked.

“That mutant son of a bitch is what happened to me,” Emma said, clearly pissed. “I was coming to find you guys when the thing hit me over the head, a second time might I add. I wound up here just in time to see that thing turn into me.”

“Okay,” Dean said, pulling away the last of the ropes. “Come on. Can you walk?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, nodding.

“Okay, we’ve gotta hurry. Sam went to see you,” Dean said as he stood straight. Emma stood behind him, following him out of the tunnel, walking a couple of paces behind Dean, and keeping that distance. Noticing Emma wasn’t by his side, Dean stopped and turned to her. “Look, Emma, I’m really sorry for everything,” Dean said.

“Why are you sorry? I know it was the demon,” Emma said, but the nervous tone in her voice and the way she was standing was enough to tell Dean that wasn’t exactly the truth.

“Really? Then why are you so nervous near me,” Dean said. Emma didn’t answer. She just stared intently at her feet.

“I’m sorry Emma,” Dean said, causing Emma to look up. And she saw all the hurt and pain behind Dean’s eyes. “I just….”

Cutting him off, Emma closed the gap between them and reaching up, touching his cheek gently.

“I know it wasn’t you Dean,” she said softly.

“But….” Dean began. Trying her best to make him understand, Emma reached up and kissed him passionately, wrapping her arms round his neck. Giving in, Dean kissed her back, holding her close round the waist. Puling apart, Emma stared at Dean for a second, slightly breathless but still with a smile on her face.

“Definitely not you,” she said.

“What?” Dean asked.

“Nothing,” Emma said, thinking that maybe she had said a little too much and trying to walk away. But Dean grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her back.

“What?” Dean repeated.

“The shapeshifter,” Emma began nervously. “It kind of… kissed me.”

“Great,” Dean said, not liking that fact one bit. “Another reason for me to kill the bastard.”

“Well, at least that’s how I knew it wasn’t you,” Emma said with a smile. “It kissed me differently.” Smiling down at her, Dean leaned in and kissed Emma softly.

“Thanks for knowing the difference.”

@~~>~~~

At the motel room, the fact that who he had been talking now had not been Emma was now clear to Sam. The fact that it was now stood in front of him in the form of his brother was a big help too.

Sam was now sat awkwardly on the floor, his hands and feet tied together while the shapeshifter walked around the room.

“What are you gonna do to me?” Sam asked.

“Oh, I’m not gonna do anything,” the shapeshifter answered. “Dean will, though.”

“They’ll never catch him,” Sam said.

“Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life,” the shapeshifter said, examining a knife he had just grabbed.

“Where is Dean?” Sam asked defiantly.

“Probably gone off to find that little bitch of his. But if I were you….” The shapeshifter said, moving back to Sam and pressing the knife to his throat. “I’d be more concerned about your own neck.”

Careful to back away from the knife, Sam brought his knees up and pushed the shapeshifter away from him. He lost his balance, stumbling but staying on his feet above Sam.

“Still trying to fight back I see,” the shapeshifter said with a small laugh. “That was always your way, wasn’t it Sammy? Fight against what was right in your face.”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Sam said.

“But I do,” the shapeshifter said. “What brother doesn’t know everything about his sibling?”

“You’re not my brother,” Sam said.

“Oh, I am Sammy. And deep down you know that.”

“No. My brother would never….”

“Never what?” the shapeshifter asked calmly. “You really have no idea what’s going on in your brother’s head, do you. Well let me enlighten you.”

Crouching down to Sam’s level, the shapeshifter stared directly into Sam’s eyes as he spoke. And Sam stared back, never once letting this thing out of his sight.

“He resents you,” the shapeshifter began. “You and Emma. Both of you could leave any time you want, go to your normal lives, but not him. This is his life, and it always will be. He gave up everything to protect you guys. What did you ever give up?”

Sam said nothing. He just stared at the shapeshifter as he paused, waiting for an answer. Sam knew he had sacrificed and give up more than this thing would ever know, but he wasn’t about to give this thing the satisfaction of letting it know it had somehow gotten to him.

“Oh, right. Jessica,” the shapeshifter said with a small laugh as if he had read Sam’s mind. “When are you ever gonna get over that?”

“Don’t you dare….” Sam began, but he was cut off as the shapeshifter aggressively drove the knife into the wall beside Sam’s head, knocking him quiet.

“Good,” it said. “Now where was I? Oh yeah, you and you pathetic revenge deal. You need to let that go.”

The shapeshifter pulled the knife out of the wall, standing straight. Grabbing Sam by his tied hands, he pulled him up with him.

“Still not seeing what’s right in front of your face Sammy boy,” the shapeshifter said, throwing Sam across the bed. Sam skidded over it, rolling to the floor on the opposite side.

“No matter what you do, nothing will ever bring her back. Dean learnt that. When will you,” he said as he walked away from Sam and towards the small table where Sam, Dean and Emma had some of there stuff.

“You and you’re family. When will you ever learn. But I must say, I will be sorry to lose this skin. Your brother’s got a lot of good qualities. You should appreciate him more than you do,” the shapeshifter said as he went through Dean’s stuff, finding his drink and pouring himself one.

“Cheers,” he said as he swallowed the drink. Picking up the knife, the shapeshifter now drove it into the table beside Sam’s head. Lifting his legs, Sam kicked the shapeshifter, sending him sailing into the bed and to the floor. Acting quickly, Sam ran his tied hands across the blade, breaking the ropes apart as the shapeshifter stood up. Sam grabbed the knife from the table and swung at the shapeshifter, but he caught his arm in mid-swing, twisting it and sending Sam to the ground.

“Oh, you son of a bitch,” the shapeshifter said as Sam got to his feet. The two began to fight, both having enough skill to block the other but nothing more. Sam tried his best to pin the shapeshifter down, holding him against the wall.

“Not bad, little brother,” the shapeshifter said.

“You’re not him,” Sam said as the shapeshifter pushed back on him. The two began to fight again, the shapeshifter getting the upper hand and he threw San against the far wall, sending the painting above Sam falling off the wall and crashing down beside him.

“Even when we were kids, I always kicked your ass,” the shapeshifter said as he advanced on Sam. Sam jumped to his feet and quickly fended off the shapeshifters attacks. As the fight continued, the two across a table, landing on the floor with Sam beneath the shapeshifter. Pinning Sam to the floor, the shapeshifter began choking Sam. Sam struggled to get up, but couldn’t as air was being cut off.

“Hey!” Dean’s voice called from the doorway. The shapeshifter turned to find Dean and Emma stood with their guns aimed at him, and quickly got off Sam. As the shapeshifter stared at the two, they both fired, shooting him twice through the heart. The shapeshifter fell to the ground, dead and still in Dean’s image.

“Sam, you alright?” Emma said as she rushed to his side, pulling him into a sitting position.

Dean walked to the shapeshifter’s body, kneeling beside it. Noticing his necklace round his neck, Dean yanked it off as he turned to Sam and Emma, the three sharing a knowing look.

@~~>~~~

The next morning, the three were getting ready to leave. Dean and Emma stood by the car, looking over a map for their next stop while Sam was saying his goodbye to Rebecca. The two looked up as Sam and Rebecca came out of the house.

“So, this is what you do?” Rebecca said. “You, your brother and his girlfriend. You hunt down these kinds of things?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Sam said.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I mean, I saw it with my own eyes. And, I mean, does everybody at school…. Nobody knows that you do this?”

“No,” Sam answered.

“Did Jessica know?” she asked.

“No, she didn’t,” Sam said sadly after a small pause.

“Must be lonely,” Rebecca said.

“Oh, no,” Sam said. “No, it’s not so bad. Anyway, what can I do? It’s my family.” Rebecca laughed slightly.

“Well, you know, Zack and me, and everybody at school, we really miss you,” she said, leaning up and hugging him.

“Yeah, me too,” Sam said as they pulled apart.

“Well, will you call sometime?” she asked.

“It might not be for a little while,” Sam said. Rebecca nodded, understand. Looking over at the car, she waved a goodbye to Dean and Emma, who waved back. She went back inside as Sam walked to the car.

“So, what about your friend, Zack?” Dean asked once Sam had walked up to them.

“Cops are blamin’ this Dean Winchester guy for Emily’s murder,” Sam said off-handedly. “They found the murder weapon in the guy’s lair, Zack’s clothes stained with her blood. Now they’re thinking maybe the surveillance tape was tampered with. Yeah, Becca says Zack will be released soon.”

Sam and Emma smiled, hiding laughter, while Dean rolled his eyes as the three got in the car.

“Sorry, man,” Dean said after a few minutes of silent driving.

“About what?” Sam asked.

“I really wish things could be different, you know?” Dean said. “I wish you could just be…. Joe College.”

“No, that’s okay,” Sam answered. “You know, the truth is, even at Stanford, deep down, I never really fit in.”

“Well, that’s ‘cause you’re a freak,” Emma said, leaning against his chair from behind. “Both of you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Sam said.

“Well, I’m a freak, too. I’m right there with you guys, all the way.” Sam laughed, turning to look directly at Emma.

“Yeah, I know you are,” he said.

“You know, I gotta say, I’m sorry I’m gonna miss it,” Dean said.

“Miss what?” Sam asked.

“How many chances am I gonna have to see my own funeral?” Dean said, turning to the two of them. The three smile knowingly at each other as they continued to drive. As they continued on with their freak lives. And you know what? None of them would have it any other way.


	7. Hook Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> The infamous ‘Hook Man’, a vengeful spirit who kills his victims with a shiny hook that serves as his hand, terrorizes a small college town in Iowa. Sam, Dean and Emma learn that all the victims are connected to the daughter of a local minister and race to find and destroy the Hook Man’s bones before he comes for them.

Easter Iowa University and we’re at the Theita Sorority. One of it’s occupants, Taylor, is lay across her bed, magazine in front of her. She is waiting for her room-mate, Lori, to eventually produce herself from the bathroom.

A few minutes later, she does, showing off her outfit. She is wearing a denim mini skirt and a white blouse.

“Ok. What do you think?” she asked her friend, spreading her arms to show off her full outfit. Taylor turned to her, pulling a face at what she saw in front of her.

“Um….” She said, and that was enough of an answer for Lori.

“Oh God. Too Martha Stewart?” Lori said, pulling a face of her own. Smiling in answer, Taylor stood from her bed and walked to her drawers. Searching through them, she turned back to Lori with a red halter top in hand.

“Here. Wear this,” she said, handing the top to Lori. Lori stood in front of the mirror, holding the top against herself, unsure of her feelings towards it.

“Um… I don’t know if this is really me,” Lori said.

“Lori,” Taylor said, stepping up behind her. “There’s a hot chick buried somewhere in there….”

“Ok, ok,” Lori said, turning to change her top. Taylor sat back on the bed, waiting while Lori changed.

“So?” Lori said, turning back round to get her mates approval.

“Damn, girl, he’s not gonna know what hit him,” Taylor said with a smile. Lori stood back in front of the mirror, smiling herself.

“Ok, I think he’s probably downstairs,” Lori said, moving to the bed and picking up her jacket and bag. “I’ll see you later.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Taylor said as her friend headed for the door.

“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do,” Lori said, smiling as she left the room. Taylor smiled to herself once the door closed behind Lori.

“That’s true,” she muttered into the empty room.

@~~>~~~

Lori’s boyfriend, Rich, had indeed been waiting, and the two were now sat in his car on 9 Mile Road. What they didn’t notice was the shadowed figure watching them from the trees.

“I thought we were going to the party,” Lori said, a slight nervous tone to her voice.

“Well, we can’t arrive on time,” Rich said, taking away some of her nervousness as she laughed gently.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you brought me here on purpose,” Lori said, smiling slightly this time.

“What? I’m offended.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Lori said with another smile from both of them as Rich leaned in for a kiss. Lori phone interrupted them as she broke away reluctantly, looking down at the caller I.D. Dad Calling, it said.

“You wanna get that?” Rich asked.

“Definitely not,” Lori said, shutting off the ringer as Rich kissed her again. Things began to go in a direction Lori didn’t want as Rich slipped his hand under the strap of her halter top.

“No,” Lori said, pushing away from him.

“It’s ok,” Rich said, ignoring the uncomfortable look in Lori’s eyes. Outside, the darkened figure both had yet to notice began walking closer to the car, where Rich was now kissing Lori’s neck, his hand again sliding under the strap.

“Hey, I mean it,” Lori said, pushing Rich away again. Before he could argue, a loud screeching noise could be heard from outside. The man, making his presence known, was dragging his hook along the Dead End sign.

“What was that?” Lori said, now switching from uncomfortable to scared.

“I don’t know,” Rich said. The sound came again as this time he dragged the hook along the 9 Mile Road sign.

“What is that?” Rich repeated, opening the car and beginning to step out.

“No! Rich, no!” Lori said, pulling on his arm to keep him in the car.

“No, just wait here,” Rich said, getting out despite her pleas and the terrified look in her eyes. Rich looked around, hearing more screeching. Turning, he saw a long scratch being made in the side of his car… but not what was making it.

“What the hell?” Rich said, now beginning to get slightly scared himself.

“Rich, let’s go!” Lori yelled from inside the car. She screamed loudly at the sound of the tires being punctured. “Rich?” Lori yelled, searching out of the window for her boyfriend. But he was nowhere to be seen.

“Rich!” she continued to scream, but got no answered. Her fear increasing, Lori rolled up the windows and locked all doors. “Rich, where are you?” she continued to scream. As an answer this time, there is scratching and banging on the roof of the car. Screaming, Lori jumped into the backseat of the car, cowering on the floor. The noise stopped but still she sat there, breathing heavily.

“Ok ok,” she said, trying to push away her fears. Getting out of the car, she ran down the road, still in search of her boyfriend. Turning, Lori found him and let out an ear-splitting scream.

Rich was suspended from and tree by his feet, his fingers scratching on the roof of the car as his blood dripped from his body.

@~~>~~~

At an outdoor café, Dean and Emma are sat at the table with coffee’s and the open laptop, waiting for Sam, who was on a nearby payphone.

“Alright, thank you for your time,” Sam said as he hung up and headed back to the table.

“Your, uh, half-caf, double vanilla latte is gettin’ cold over here, Francis,” Dean said as he approached, looking over Emma’s shoulder at the computer screen.

“Bite me,” Sam said, taking a seat beside Emma.

“So, anything?” Dean asked, referring to the phone call Sam had just made. Sam shook his head in answer.

“I had ‘em check the FBI’s Missing Persons Data Bank. No John Doe’s fitting Dad’s description. I even ran his plates for traffic violations.”

“Sam, I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t think Dad wants to be found,” Dean said. Sam said nothing, just gave him a disappointed look.

“Check this out,” Emma said, changing the subject and turning the laptop to Sam. It showed the article on Rich’s death.

“It’s a news item out of Planes Courier,” she said. “Ankeny, Iowa. It’s only about a hundred miles from here.”

“ ‘The mutilated body was found near the victim’s car, parked on 9 Mile Road,’ ” Sam read from the article.

“Keep reading,” Emma urged on. And he did.

“ ‘Authorities are unable to provide a realistic description of the killer. The sole eyewitness, whose name has been withheld, is quoted as saying the attacker was invisible.’ ”

“Could be something interesting,” Emma said once he finished.

“Or it could be nothing at all,” Sam said. “One freaked out witness who didn’t see anything? Doesn’t mean it’s the Invisible Man.”

“But what if it is? Dad would check it out,” Dean finished, giving Sam a look saying he knew he was right himself.

@~~>~~~

Taking on the case, Sam, Dean and Emma drove to the fraternity where Rich had lived. Sam and Dean got out of the car, not paying attention to the fact that Emma was refusing to budge.

“One more time, why are we here?” Sam asked.

“Victim lived here,” Dean said simply, turning to his girlfriend to find she wasn’t behind him.

“Oh, would you come on,” Dean said, turning to the car and glaring at the still seated Emma.

“Why am I always the one who ends up dressed like this?” she yelled out at him.

“Because you’re the girl. Now come on,” Dean replied. Bad move.

Emma got out of the car, a scowl on her face that did not match the persona of what she was wearing. She was showing a lot of tanned skin in the low cut top and mini skirt she was wearing. She stood in front of Dean, her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at him as she tapped her kitten heeled shoe on the floor. Dean simply smiled, definitely liking what he was seeing.

“That’s sexist, you know that,” Emma said simply.

“Come on, you look great,” Dean said.

“You would say that,” Emma said with a wry smile. “But I still don’t see the problem with me wearing what I always wear.”

“This is a fraternity house,” Dean told her. “The boys in here are very shallow Emma. This is the only way you’re getting in.” Taking her round the waist, Dean walked Emma up towards the dorm, Sam following them.

“Nice wheels,” Dean said as they stopped in front of a group guys who were working on a car. They all turned to the trio, looking at them strangely.

“We’re your fraternity brothers,” Dean continued. “From Ohio. We’re new in town. Transfers. Looking for a place to stay.”

He grinned widely as he watched the guys give Emma the once over. She smiled sweetly, although Dean felt her tense slightly in his arms under the guys roaming eyes. She wasn’t the type of girl who marvelled over guys looking at her like this, whether she had the goods or not. But even she knew Dean was right. Looking like this was the only way she was getting in as well. Most all guys, living in a fraternity or not, were extremely shallow when it came to their women.

@~~>~~~

The boys, and Emma, were showed into the fraternity house and their new dorm room. There they found a shirtless frat boy in yellow shorts who was painting his body purple. With a strange look on their faces, they knocked on the door, catching the boy’s attention.

“Who are you?” he asked as he turned to them.

“We’re your new roommates,” Dean answered, striding into the room with Emma at his side. Taking this on board, the boy held the paint tin and brush out to Dean.

“Do me a favor?” he asked. “Get my back. Big game today.”

“He’s the artist,” Dean said, pointing to Sam. “Things he can do with a brush.”

With a mortified look on his face, Sam took the brush and can from the boy. Smiling, Dean flopped into a chair, tugging Emma onto his lap and picking up a magazine.

“So… Murph,” Dean said, looking at the name on the magazine. “Is it true?”

“What?” he asked.

“We heard one of the guys around here got killed last week,” Dean said.

“Yeah,” Murph said, his voice dropping slightly.

“What happened?” Sam asked, speaking up for the first time.

“They’re saying some psycho with a knife,” he answered. “Maybe a drifter passing through. Rich was a good guy.”

“Rich he was with somebody?” Sam asked.

“Not just somebody. Lori Sorensen.”

“Who’s Lori Sorensen?” Sam asked before turning to Sam. “You missed a spot. Just down there. On the back.”

Sam just glared at him, an annoyed look on his face, while Dean and Emma grinned, Emma trying to hold back laughter.

“Lori’s a freshman,” Murph said in answer to Dean’s earlier question. “She’s a local. Super hot. And get this: she’s a reverend’s daughter.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know which church, would ya?” Dean asked.

@~~>~~~

Murph did in fact know what church. And right now, the service for Rich was in full flow.

“Our hearts go out to the family of a young man who perished,” Lori’s father, Reverend Sorensen was saying. “And my personal prayers of thanks go out as well because I believe he died trying to protect my daughter.”

He turned to his daughter with a small smile. She just lowered her eyes, embarrassed.

“And now,” he continued. “As time heals all our wounds, we should reflect on what this tragedy means. To us, as a church.”

During his sermon, Sam, Dean and Emma, now back in her normal clothes, walked into the church. The door slammed behind Sam, the last of the three to walk in. the whole congregation, including Dean and Emma, went silent and turned to him.

“As a community, and as a family,” the reverend continued, bringing the congregations attention back to him. “The loss of a young person is particularly tragic. A life unlived is the saddest of passings.”

Sam, Dean and Emma took a seat at the back of the church, now being as quiet as possible. As they sat, Lori turned to them, and Sam smiled weakly at her.

“So, please, let us pray,” Reverend Sorensen said. “For peace, for guidance, and for the power to protect our children.”

The whole church bowed their heads in prayer, even Sam and Emma. All but Dean. Noticing this, Emma elbowed him in the side, motioning round the room. Seeing he was the only one still with his head up, Dean too bowed his head.

@~~>~~~

Once the mass had ended, the church populace made their way outside, chatting away in small groups. Lori and Taylor were part of this crowd, making their way out of the church.

“I can’t,” Lori said to her friend. “It’s Sunday night.”

“It’s just us girls,” Taylor told her. “We’re gonna do tequila shots and watch Reality Bites.”

“My dad makes dinner every Sunday night,” Lori said.

“Come on, Lori. I know this has been hard, but you are allowed to have fun.”

“I’ll try.” Was Lori’s answer, to which Taylor rolled her eyes.

“Ok,” Taylor said, pulling her friend into a hug. She backed away, mouthing the words ‘You Better’ as she left. Sam, Dean and Emma took her place, stepping g up beside her.

“Are you Lori?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Lori said as she turned to them.

“My name is Sam. This is my brother, Dean, and his girlfriend Emma.”

“Hi,” Dean and Emma said together, waving slightly.

“We just transferred here to the university,” Sam continued.

“I saw you inside,” Lori said matter-of-factly.

“We don’t wanna bother you,” Sam said. “We just heard about what happened and....”

“We wanted to say how sorry we were,” Dean finished.

“I kind of know what you’re going through,” Sam told her. “I… I saw someone… get hurt once. It’s something you don’t forget.” Lori nodded slightly as her father walked up to them.

“Dad,” Lori said, turning to him. “Um, this is Sam, Dean and Emma. They’re new students.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Dean said as he shook the reverends hand. “I must say, that was an inspiring sermon.”

“Thank you very much,” the reverend said. “It’s so nice to find young people who are open to the Lord’s message.” Dean chuckled slightly as Emma stepped forward.

“Listen, uh, we’re new in town, actually,” Emma said as she and Dean led the reverend away. “And, uh, we were looking for a, um, a church group.”

They moved the reverend away from his daughter, leaving Sam and Lori to talk in private.

“Tell me, Lori. What are the police saying?” Sam asked as they began walking in the opposite direction.

“Well, they don’t have a lot to go on. I think they blame me for that,” Lori said.

“What do you mean?”

“My story. I was so scared, I guess I was ‘seeing things’,” Lori said as they stopped walking.

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real,” Sam said as the two held each other’s gaze for a few seconds.

@~~>~~~

With what little they knew, the three made their way to the library, walking through the stacks.

“So you believe her?” Dean asked.

“I do,” Sam said.

“Yeah, I think she’s hot, too,” Dean said off-handedly, earning himself a smack across the back of the head. Dean just took it lightly, rubbing the spot where she had hit. He was too used to it now.

“No, man, there’s something in her eyes,” Sam said. “And listen to this: she heard scratching on the roof. Found the bloody body suspended upside down over the car.”

“Wait, the body suspended?” Emma said, clicking on to what Sam was getting at. “That sounds like the….”

“Yeah, I know, the Hook Man legend,” Sam said, filling in the blanks.

“That’s one of the most famous urban legends ever,” Emma said. “You don’t think that we’re dealing with the Hook Man.”

“Every urban legend has a source. A place where it all began.”

“Yeah, but what about the phantom scratches and the tire punctures and the invisible killer?” Dean said, for once being the level-headed one.

“Well, maybe the Hook Man isn’t a man at all,” Sam said. “What if it’s some kind of spirit?”

@~~>~~~

Now sat at a table in the back of the library, Sam, Dean and Emma sat back while a librarian placed boxes in front of them.

“Here you go. Arrest records going back to 1851,” she told them as Dean blew dust from the box, coughing as it came back in his face.

“Thanks,” Emma said to the woman with a friendly smile.

“Ok,” she said as se walked away.

“So, this is how you spent four good years of your life, huh?” Dean said once she had left.

“Welcome to higher education,” Sam said as he opened one of the boxes. Dean and Emma followed suit with the other box, the three now reading through the contents of them. Hours later, and they were still there, a very bored Dean and Emma almost falling asleep.

“Hey, check this out,” Sam said, knocking Dean and Emma back to reality. “1862. A preacher named Jacob Karns was arrested for murder. Looks like he was so angry over the red light district in town that one night he killed 13 prostitutes. Uh, right here, ‘some of the deceased were found in their bed, sheets soaked with blood. Others suspended upside down from the limbs of trees as a warning against sins of the flesh.’ ”

“Get this, the murder weapon?” Dean said, turning to another page. “Looks like the preacher lost his hand in an accident. Had it replaced with a silver hook.”

“Look where all this happened,” Emma said, pointing to another page.

“9 Mile Road,” Dean read.

“Same place where the frat boy was killed,” Sam said.

“Nice job, Dr. Venkmen. Let’s check it out,” Dean said, slapping Sam on the back as he gathered the research and the three left.

@~~>~~~

At Lori’s sorority, Reverend Sorensen pulled up outside, his daughter in the car.

“I know this is your first time really living alone since Mom died,” Lori said at his concerned eyes.

“That’s not it,” her father said. “I worry about you.”

“There are 22 girls in there and perfectly safe,” Lori pointed out.

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” the reverend said. “You don’t think I know what goes on in there?”

“Dad, do we have to have this argument again? I’m over 18. I can live my own life.”

“Oh, which means, drinking, partying with that roommate of yours!”

“I’m an adult. I can take care of myself. Good night,” Lori said, getting out of the car and slamming the door a little too heavily.

“Lori,” he called to her retreating back. “Lori, come…. Lori!”

But Lori didn’t listen. She just carried on walking into her sorority and to her dorm room. She passed a long scratch on the wall leading up to the one room where she paused. Inside there was a girl innocently working on her computer. She just ignored it and walked to her bedroom. She was about to flick on the bedroom light when she saw that Taylor was asleep.

“Taylor, you awake?” she called softly into the room. Taylor didn’t wake up. Lori left the light off and proceeded to get ready in the dark.

@~~>~~~

Up at 9 Mile Road, Sam, Dean and Emma had just pulled up and were rummaging round in the trunk.

“Here you go,” Dean said, handing Sam a rifle.

“If it is a spirit, buckshot won’t do much good,” Sam said.

“Yeah, rock salt,” Dean said, handing the rounds to him.

“Huh. Salt being a spirit deterrent.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, taking out a coil of rope and closing the trunk. “It won’t kill ‘em. But it’ll slow ‘em down.”

“That’s pretty good,” Sam said as they walked towards the trees. “You guys and Dad think of this?”

“I told you. You don’t have to be a college graduate to be a genius,” Dean said. They were stopped in their tracks as they heard a noise in the trees in front of them. Sam instinctively rose the shotgun, fanning around for the location of the sound.

“Over there. Over there,” Emma said, pointing towards the trees. Sam cocked the gun and aimed in that direction, watching as a figure walked towards them.

“Put the gun down now!” the figure yelled, who appeared to be the sheriff with his own gun. “Now! Put your hands behind your head.”

“W-w-wait, okay, okay!” Dean called out.

“Now get down on your knees. Come on, do it! On your knees!” The three obliged, getting on their knees as Sam dropped the shotgun. “Now get down on your bellies. Come on, do it!”

“He had the gun!” Dean moaned out as they did, lying on their stomachs.

@~~>~~~

Back at Lori and Taylor’s room, Lori comes out of the bathroom, now changed into her pyjamas. She looked over at Taylor, who shifted slightly in her sleep, then slipped into her own bed.

As Lori turned over, the closet door swung open slightly, revealing the Hook Man stood in wait.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, Lori rolled sleepily over in her bed, opening her eyes slowly. When she did, they fell on a pool of blood leaking from Taylor’s bed. Her eyes travelling up, she found Taylor dead, her eyes staring blankly out and lying in a pool of her own blood.

“Oh my God,” Lori exclaimed and she screamed as her eyes travelled higher. Written on the back wall in what could only be Taylor’s blood are the words, ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’, an intricate cross pattern beneath it.

@~~>~~~

Up at the sheriff’s department, Sam, Dean and Emma are finally leaving after spending the night trying to get Sam off the hook.

“Saved your ass!” Dean exclaimed as they walked out. “Talked the sheriff down to a fine. Dude, I am Matlock.”

“But how?” Sam asked.

“We told him you were a dumbass pledge and that we were hazing you.”

“What about the shotgun?”

“We said that you were hunting ghosts and the spirits were repelled by rock salt,” Emma filled in. “You know, typical Hell Week prank.”

“And he believed you?” Sam said.

“Well, you look like a dumbass pledge,” Dean said blatantly as they walked up to the car. Just then, the officers who they had spent the night persuading ran from the building, into their cards and sped away. Sam, Dean and Emma exchanged a look. Most definitely something bigger going on.

@~~>~~~

And the big event was that at Lori’s sorority. Police and ambulance were parked everywhere, and the impala joined them as it drove by. The occupants watched Lori as she sat in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, before driving off round the building.

Also watching his daughter, Reverend Sorensen was stood talking to the sheriff.

“I just want to take her home,” he said almost pleadingly.

“I understand that, Reverend,” the sheriff told him. “But Lori’s now connected to two murders, and I can’t ignore that.”

“Listen to me. Arrest her now, or let me take her home.” The sheriff thought about this for a minute, turning to Lori.

“Make sure she’s available for questioning,” the sheriff said eventually.

“Thank you,” she said, walking over to his daughter. “Sweetheart, you ready to go home?”

Without a word, Lori stood up and let her father guide her away. Round the back of the building, Sam, Dean and Emma parked up on the street and made their way to the back of the sorority.

“Why would the Hook Man come here?” Sam said. “This is a long way from 9 Mile Road.”

“Maybe he’s not haunting the scene of his crime,” Dean suggested. “Maybe it’s about something else.”

While they were talking, a pair of sorority girls came out of the building, intrigued by the commotion outside. Sam, Dean and Emma lean up against the side of the building, hiding amongst some bushes to avoid being seen.

“Dude, sorority girls!” Dean said almost playfully. “Think we’ll see a naked pillow fight?”

Emma thumped Dean on the arm, bringing his attention to Sam trying to climb onto the balcony. Dean helped him up, then Emma, then joined them himself. They crept over to Lori’s window, climbing through in the same order. Dean ungracefully fell through the window, landing equally ungracefully on top of his girlfriend.

“Oh, sorry!” Dean muttered.

“Be quiet,” Emma hissed at him.

“Me be quiet? You be quiet!” Dean retorted.

“Both of you be quiet!” Sam hissed back at both of them. They were now in Lori’s walk-in closet. Sam opened up the door and watched as the sheriff leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Only then did Sam, Dean and Emma step into the room, seeing the blood, the police tape, and the writing on the wall.

“ ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’ ” Sam said, reading off the wall. “That’s right out of the legend.”

“Yeah, that’s classic Hook Man all right. It’s definitely a spirit,” he said, tapping the end of his noise to indicate the smell around them that the police hadn’t picked up on as more than the normal smell of a dead body.

“Yeah, I’ve never smelled ozone this strong before,” Emma said, agreeing with him as he moved to the window.

“Hey, come here,” Sam said, his eyes still on the wall. Dean walked over to stand beside him and Emma.

“Does that look familiar to you?” he asked, indicating the cross symbol below the writing.

@~~>~~~

Dean and Emma did in fact recognise the symbol. They figured where from as they sat on the hood of the car, going over the research they already had on Reverend Jacob Karns.

“It’s the same symbol,” Sam said, pointing to the symbol of the cross that was etched into the hook the reverend had for a hand. “Seems like it is the spirit of Jacob Karns.”

“All right, let’s find the dude’s grave, salt and burn the bones, and put him down,” Dean said as Sam read over the research.

“ ‘After execution, Jacob Karns was laid to rest in an Old North Cemetery. In an unmarked grave,’ ” Sam read off to them, the information clearly annoying his brother and best friend as much as it was him.

“Super,” Emma said sarcastically, thinking just how long it was actually gonna take them to get this seemingly simple job finished.

“Ok. So we know it’s Jacob Karns,” Sam said. “But we still don’t know where he’ll manifest next. Or why.”

“I’ll take a wild guess about why,” Dean said as the three moved to get back into the car. I think your little friend Lori has something to do with this.”

@~~>~~~

Looking for new information, Sam picked possible the worst place to bring Dean. A college party. While Sam stood in the middle of the room, the goings on around him not of any matter to him, Dean and Emma walked towards him, Dean with a look on his face like Christmas had come early.

“Hey,” Sam said as they stopped in front of him.

“Man, you’ve been holding out on me,” Dean said, his excitement showing in his voice. “This college thing is awesome!” He winked and smiled slyly at a passing girl. He tensed slightly, expected the usual smack from Emma. Instead, all she did was roll her eyes. Dean was Dean, and now amount of smacks around the head would knock any sense into him. Emma had a small inkling the damage had been done at birth.

“This wasn’t really my experience,” Sam told him.

“Let me guess. Libraries, studying, straight A’s?” Dean said. Sam just nodded. “What a geek. Alright, you do your homework?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, finally getting excited about something. “It was bugging me, right? So how is the Hook Man tied up with Lori? So I think I came up with something.”

He unravelled a large and very old looking piece of paper, showing it to Dean and Emma.

“1932. Clergyman arrested for murder,” Dean read off. “1967. Seminarian held in hippie rampage.”

“There’s a pattern here,” Sam said. “In both cases, the suspect was a man of religion who openly preached against immorality. And then found himself wanted for killings he claimed were the work of an invisible force. Killings carried out, get this, with a sharp instrument.”

“What’s the connection to Lori?” Dean asked.

“A man of religion? Who openly preaches against immorality?” Sam told them, making it seem like it was obvious. And what Sam really was getting at hit them before he continued. “Except maybe this time, instead of saving the whole town, he’s just trying to save his only daughter.”

“Reverend Sorensen,” Dean filled in the blanks. “You think he’s summoning the spirit?”

“Maybe,” Sam said.

“Or you know how a poltergeist can haunt a person instead of a place?” Emma reminded them.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “The spirit latches onto the reverend’s repressed emotions, feeds off them, yeah, okay.”

“Without the reverend ever even knowing it,” Emma finished.

“Either way, you should keep an eye on Lori tonight,” Dean told Sam.

“What about you two?” Sam asked with a nod. Dean attention was momentarily caught by an attractive blonde girl smiling at him from beside the pool table.

“We’re gonna go see if we can find that unmarked grave,” Dean said. Seeing where his attention was, Emma dragged Dean away, this time taking action on his flirtatious nature.

@~~>~~~

Despite his almost desperate want to stay at that party, Dean was now searching through the graveyard with Emma, the only light the flashlight beam in front of them. The silence of the night was suddenly disturbed as a twig broke behind them. Jumping round, Emma gripped onto Dean’s arm. Dean laughed slightly at the hunter beside him who had the spooks so suddenly.

“All the things we’ve seen and you’re still scared of a cemetery,” Dean said to her.

“Just shut up and let’s find this thing quickly,” Emma snapped out at him.

They did just that, walking through the headstones. Despite trying to put on a brave front, Emma still had a vice like grip on Dean’s arm. The flashlights beam finally fell across a gravestone with the familiar cross pattern engraved into it.

“Here we go,” Dean said as they walked towards it.

@~~>~~~

Out on guard duty, Sam was stood outside Lori’s house. He watched silently as Lori and her father argued, their words unheard. He felt for the girl, the scene all too familiar to him.

@~~>~~~

Back at the graveyard, the reverends grave had almost been dug up, thanks to Dean. Emma knelt beside the open grave, watching but not helping.

“That’s it,” Dean said, breathless and his t-shirt sticking to him. “Next time, I get to watch the cute girl’s house.” This earned him a light tap across the head with Emma’s foot, drawing his attention to her.

“You know, this would go a lot quicker if you helped,” Dean said.

“I’m the girl of the group remember,” Emma said, smiling sarcastically at the guy who was glaring at her. “I’m just here to look pretty and get you into places. Digging graves is a man’s job.”

“I said I was sorry about that,” Dean said. Still not liking the look on his face, Emma wanted to remind him about the countless others times she had been simply their ‘skirt’ so to speak. Like the time they wanted to see the plane wreck from the phantom traveller and had stood and let two pervy guards give her the once over to get them in. But she didn’t. She just watched as Dean’s shovel finally hit wood, shattering through the coffin. And there was the remains of Reverend Jacob Karns.

“Hello, preacher,” Dean said, throwing his shovel aside, and Emma could swear he aimed at her.

@~~>~~~

Outside Lori’s house, Sam continues to watch from a safe distance. The argument was now finished and Reverend Sorensen was turning the lights out in the house. Lori, however, was outside and walking to where Sam was sitting. While he looked somewhat embarrassed, she simply sat next to him on the bench.

“I saw you from upstairs,” she said simply. “What are you doing here?

“I’m keeping an eye on the place,” Sam said. Lori just continued to stare at him. “I was worried,” he finished.

“About me?” Lori asked.

“Yeah. Sorry,” Sam said, his embarrassment kicking in again.

“No, it’s cool. I already called the cops,” Lori said with a smile. Sam just laughed slightly.

“No, seriously,” she continued. “I think you’re sweet. Which is probably why you should run away from me as fast as you can.”

“Why would you say that?”

“It’s like I’m cursed or something. People around me keep dying.”

“I think I know how you feel,” Sam said, his mind unwittingly flicking back to both his mother and Jess.

@~~>~~~

Back at the cemetery, Dean was now out of the grave, Reverend Jacob Karns uncovered and ready to be burned. Dean poured salt and lighter fluid over the bones while Emma lit the match.

“Goodbye, preacher,” Dean said as Emma threw the match onto the highly flammable body and the two watched at it went up in smoke and flames.

@~~>~~~

Lori and Sam were still sat outside the house, Sam listening carefully at Lori spilled everything to him.

“No one will talk to me anymore. Except you,” Lori told him. “The sheriff thinks I’m a suspect. And you know what my dad will say? Pray. Have faith. What does he know about faith?”

“I heard you guys fighting before,” Sam said simply.

“He’s seeing a woman,” Lori continued. “A married woman. I just found out. She comes to our church with her husband. I know her kids. And he talks to me about religion? About morality? It’s like, on one hand, you know, just do what you want and be happy. But he taught me, raised me to believe that if you do something wrong you will get punished. I just don’t know what to think anymore.”

Much to Sam’s confused, Lori leant into him slowly, hugging him. Overcoming his con fusion and trying to comfort her, Sam hugged her back. She caused Sam more confusion when she pulled back and kissed him. Again, he found himself kissing her back for a second, until he gently pushed her away.

“Sam?” she asked, confusion now showing in her voice.

“Lori, I can’t,” Sam said simply.

“That someone you lost?” Lori asked. Sam just continued to stare at her. “I’m sorry,” she said softly as her dad came outside.

“Lori? Come inside, please,” the reverend said.

“I’ll come in when I’m ready,” Lori said, her voice showing just how what she felt towards her father right now. Before he could argue back, the hook man appeared behind him, digging his hook deep in the reverends shoulder. The last thing they heard were the reverends screams as the hook man slammed the door. Without a seconds pause, Sam grabbed his gun and ran into the house, listening for the reverend.

“No! No, please! No!” Sam heard the reverends voiced shouting upstairs. Following the sound, Sam was in time to see a door slam shut. Running and pulling it open, Sam now saw the hook man towering over the reverend, his hook ready to strike.

“No! No, no!” the reverend continued to scream. Sam took aim and shot the hook m an in the side. The hook mans attention now on the new entity in the room, Sam shot again, the hook man turning to dust and the shot shattering the window. From downstairs, Sam could hear Lori screaming and her heavy footfalls as she ran up the stairs.

“Dad! Dad!” her voice rang out as she flew into the room, kneeling beside her father. “Okay. It’s ok, Dad, it’s ok. It’s ok,” Lori said comfortingly to her father. And Sam watched, his eyes trained on the spot the hook man had just disappeared from.

@~~>~~~

The next morning, Sam stood outside a hospital room, watching through the window as Lori stood beside her father’s bed. The sheriff stood beside him, questioning on the events of last night.

“We were just talking,” Sam said. “Then Lori’s dad came out. And then he appeared.”

“A big man?” the sheriff said. “Carrying a weapon, some kind of hook?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ever seen him before?”

“No, sir.”

“Son, it seems every time I turn around, I’m seeing you. I suggest you try to stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said with a nod. His attention was drawn by his brother voice as he saw him and Emma trying to get past two officers.

“No, it’s alright, we’re with him. He’s my brother,” Dean was telling the officers before turning to Sam. “Hey! Brother!” He and Emma smiled and waved brightly to Sam.

“Let them through,” the sheriff said and the officers stepped aside, letting them passed.

“Thanks,” Dean said in the politest tone he could as the sheriff walked away and they made their way to Sam. Emma rushed forward, hugging him fiercely.

“You ok?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Sam replied as he laced his own arms round her waist hugging her back.

“What the hell happened?” Dean asked.

“Hook Man,” Sam said simply as he pulled away from Emma.

“You saw him?” Dean said.

“Damn right. Why didn’t you torch the bones?”

“What are you talking about, we did,” Emma said. “You sure it’s the spirit of Jacob Karns?”

“It sure as hell looked like him. And that’s not all. I don’t think the spirit is latching on to the reverend.”

“Well, yeah, the guy wouldn’t send the Hook Man after himself,” Dean said.

“I think it’s latching onto Lori,” Sam told the two confused looking people in front of him. “Last night she found out her father is having an affair with a married woman.”

“So what?” Dean said.

“So she’s upset about it. She’s upset about the immorality of it,” Sam said, trying to make them understand his point. “She told me she was raised to believe that if you do something wrong, you get punished.”

“Ok, so she’s conflicted,” Dean said. “And the spirit of Preacher Karns is latching on to repress the emotions and maybe he’s doing the punishing for her, huh?”

“Right. Rich comes on too strong, Taylor tries to make her into a party girl, Dad has an affair.”

“Remind me not to piss this girl off,” Emma said in all honesty.

“But we burned those bones, we buried them in salt,” Dean said. “Why didn’t that stop him?”

“You must have missed something.”

“No,” Emma said. “We burned everything in that coffin.”

“Did you get the hook?”

“The hook?” Dean said, the confusion in his voice matching that on Emma’s face.

“Well, it was the murder weapon, and in a way, it was part of him.”

“So, like the bones, the hook is a source of his power,” Dean said.

“So if we find the hook….” Sam began.

“We stop the Hook Man,” the three finished together with a smile.

@~~>~~~

Back at the library, the trio were no looking for where the hook might be, not the preacher.

“Here’s something, I think,” Dean said. “Log book, Iowa State Penitentiary. Karns, Jacob. Personal affects: disposition thereof.”

“Does it mention the hook?” Sam said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean said as he continued to read. “Upon execution, all earthly items shall be remanded to the prisoner’s house of worship, St. Barnabas Church.”

“Isn’t that where Lori’s father preaches?” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Dean answered.

“Where Lori lives?” Sam said.

“Maybe that’s why the Hook Man has been haunting reverends and reverends’ daughters for the past 200 years,” Dean said.

“Yeah, but if the hook were at the church or Lori’s house, don’t you think someone might’ve seen it?” Sam said. “I mean, a bloodstained, silver-handled hook?”

“Check the church records,” Emma suggested. And that’s what they did. It was of an hour before Emma came up with the answer.

“St. Barnabas donations, 1862,” Emma read off. “Received silver-handled hook from state penitentiary. Reforged.” With a heavy sigh, she closed the book.

“They melted it down. Made it into something else.” And they were now no closer to finishing this.

@~~>~~~

Taking their chances, the three had parked up outside the church, stood beside Impala.

“Alright, we can’t take any chances,” Dean said. “Anything silver goes in the fire.”

“I agree,” Sam said. “So, Lori’s still at the hospital. We’ll have to break in.”

“Alright, take your pick,” Emma said, motioning towards the church and the house.

“I’ll take the house,” Sam said.

“Ok,” Dean said, watching as Sam walked away. “Hey,” he said, making Sam turn again.

“Stay out of her underwear drawer,” he said, which only earned him a glare before he turned to walk away again.

@~~>~~~

In the church basement, Dean and Emma stood throwing all the silver items they had found into the fire. They turned to the sound of footfalls as Sam came running down the stairs with a bag.

“I got everything that even looked silver,” Sam said.

“Better safe than sorry,” Emma said as they began throwing the new stuff on the fire. The sound of footfalls met their ears again, but this time everyone they thought was in the church was down here.

“Move, move,” Dean said as he motioned Sam and Emma up the stairs, him following with his gun drawn. Upstairs, pushing the door open cautiously, they found the new occupant was Lori, sat crying alone in a pew, crying.

Putting the gun away, Dean motioned for Sam to go over to her while he and Emma went back into the basement. Sam moved quietly into the main church, stepping up beside her.

“Lori?” he said softly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she turned to him.

“What is it?” Sam asked, ignoring her question and kneeling beside her.

“I’ve been trying to understand what’s been happening,” Lori told him. “Why? Now I know so I’m praying for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness for what?”

“Don’t you see? I’m to blame for all this. I’ve read in the Bible about avenging angels.”

“Trust me, this guy, he’s no angel,” Sam said, trying to comfort her.

“I was so angry at my father,” Lori said, ignoring his comment. “Part of me wanted him punished. And then he came and he punished him.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. I don’t know how, but it is. I killed Rich. Taylor, too. I nearly killed my father.”

“Lori….”

“I can see it now,” she cut in. “They didn’t deserve to be punished. I do.”

At her final statement, Sam’s attention was drawn to a noise from the back of the church. He watched as the candles extinguished, a slow breeze blowing through them.

“Come on. We gotta go,” Sam said, bringing her to her feet. He led her towards the basement door but before he could open it, the hook man’s hook came crashing through the wood, inches away from their heads. “Go!” Sam screamed, running down the aisle with Lori close behind him.

They ran into the back room, the hook man close behind them, smashing through the glass on the door Sam had just closed. Standing protectively in front of Lori, Sam let the hook man swing at him a couple of times, dodging each swing. But as he turned to run, his attention on Lori, the hook man swung again, this time catching Sam across the shoulder. He screamed out in pain, unable to do anything as an invisible force pulled Lori back across the floor.

“Come on. You okay?” Sam called out as he ran t Lori, stopping beside her. Before he could help her to her feet, the hook man appeared and knocked Sam backwards. Getting to his feet, Sam pulled himself up behind the hook man. Before he could attack, Dean and Emma ran round the corner, Dean with his gun drawn.

“Sam, drop!” Dean yelled. Sam did, crouching to the ground as Dean shot the hook man, watching as he disappeared.

“I thought we got all the silver,” Sam yelled from his position beside Lori.

“So did I,” Emma yelled back.

“Then why is he still here?”

“Well, maybe we missed something!” Dean yelled. It was then that Sam turned to Lori, noticing the silver cross necklace round her neck.

“Lori, where did you get that chain?” Sam asked.

“My father gave it to me,” she answered.

“Where’d your dad get it?” Dean asked.

“He said it was a church heirloom, he gave it to me when I started school.”

“Is it silver?!” Sam asked the pivotal question.

“Yes!” Lori called back to him. At her answer, Sam ripped the chain from her neck. The hook man decided to make himself known again then, a long scratch mark being drawn down the wall by an invisible someone as Dean and Emma turned to watch it getting closer.

“Sam!” Emma called as she turned back round, motioning for Sam to throw her the necklace. He did as Dean threw him the rifle and rock salt. While Sam shot at his invisible target, Dean and Emma ran to the basement to throw the last silver object onto the fire.

Sam tried to reload the gun against his wounded shoulder but was stopped in his attempts as the hook man knocked the rifle from his hand. With nothing else to do but wait for his brother and best friend to come through, Sam and Lori crawled away from their attacker, backing against the wall as he towered over them.

As the necklace began to melt in the furnace below, the hook man stopped, his hook raised in the air. The first thing to melt away was his hook, the rest of his body burning into nothing. As the hook man disappeared for good, Dean and Emma run into the room. The trio share a knowing look. At last, this was over.

@~~>~~~

Daylight breaking, police cars and ambulances were now parked outside the church, the sheriff taking Dean and Emma’s statement.

“And you saw him, too? The man with the hook?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes, I told you, we all saw him,” Dean said. “We fought him off and then he ran.”

“And that’s all?” the sheriff asked in a disbelieving tone.

“Yeah, that’s all,” Emma said.

“Listen. You two and your brother….”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re leaving town,” Dean said, cutting off the guys sentence before he could say the inevitable. They walked to the car, waiting for Sam who was at the ambulance, getting his arm bandaged up with Lori watching over him.

“You gonna be okay?” Lori asked.

“Yeah,” Sam answered, standing up.

“I still don’t know what happened,” Lori said. “But I do know you saved my life. My father’s, too. Thank you.”

All Sam gave was a simple nod and a smile as he turned to leave, heading back to the car where Dean was watching him through the mirror. Leaning forward from the back seat, Emma prodded Dean lightly in the back of the head.

“Stop it,” she said. One look at her face and Dean knew what she meant. It wasn’t the watching, but the interfering into his baby brother’s life. With a sigh, Dean faced the front as Sam climbed into the car.

“We could stay,” Dean said, knowing, despite Emma’s warnings, the only way his brother would do anything would be with his interfering. But all Sam did was shake his head. Watching Lori through the mirror, Dean could clearly saw the disappointed look on his face. Shaking his own head in disappointment, Dean drove away, leaving the latest link in their chain behind, and ready to make a new one as they drove to their next destination.


	8. Bugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> After a construction worker is killed by insects burrowing into his brain, Sam, Dean and Emma investigate the town's history and find that the new housing development is being built on sacred Indian land. The Indians put a curse on the land after their reservation had been ravished and destroyed. Sam, Dean and Emma must find a way to survive and kill the deadly swarm of bees, locusts, spiders and beetles.

In Oklahoma, on a place soon to be known as Oasis Planes, construction workers are working to get the new property development up and running. Out on one lot, with a pair of workers, one is working while the other looks around, admiring what will be once their work is finished.

“Man, these are some phat house, huh? I’d like to live here,” the worker, Travis, spoke to his partner.

“Yeah. Too bad you can’t afford it,” his partner, Dustin, said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Travis said. “This neighbour hood will be damn expensive when it’s done.”

Dustin, while his work partner continued looking round the surrounding, carried on with his work, spraying the ground. The only thing that stopped him was when he noticed the slight rumbling beneath his feet. Kneeling down, he put his hand to the ground to find the origin.

“You know, this place is perfect,” Travis said, not noticing the rumbling, as a mosquito landed on his neck and he swatted it away.

“Except for the mosquitoes,” he finished as two sounds broke through the air. Ground breaking and Dustin’s scream. Turning, Travis didn’t see Dustin, but a sink hole in the ground.

“Dustin!” Travis yelled as he ran to the sink hole, looking down at Dustin inside.

“Help me,” Dustin called up to him. “I’m trapped! I broke my ankle!”

“All right, I’ll get a rope,” Travis said as he ran to their van.

Down the sink hole, Dustin lay, cradling his broken ankle since he could do little else where he was.

“Oh, damn,” he moaned as pain shot through his ankle. In the silence of his sink hole, Dustin can now hear the sound of scurrying. He looks around and finds tons of bugs around, including crawling over his hands.

“Oh, God,” he says as he swats the bugs off him, frantically hoping that Travis, who was up at the truck searching for a rope would hurry. But no matter how many bugs he swatted away, they kept coming, crawling all over his body.

“Travis, help!” Dustin screamed, his fear kicking in as his breathing came out staggered.

“Hang on!” Travis yelled from the truck as he found the rope.

“Travis, help!” Dustin continued to scream as the bugs now crawled inside his ears.

“It’s ok, Dustin, it’s ok,” Travis called as he ran to the sink hole with a rope and flashlight.

“Dustin? Dustin, I’m here,” Travis called into the sink hole to his friend as he aimed the flashlight on him. “Oh, God,” he whispered softly at what he saw.  
Travis had been too late and Dustin was dead, blood running from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears… anywhere it could.

@~~>~~~

At a tavern somewhere outside of Oklahoma, Sam lay against the hood of the Impala, reading a newspaper as he waited for his brother and friend. They had been in there for ages now, getting money their way, while Sam opted to wait outside. And that had paid off. The article he was reading now had the headline ‘Local Death A Medical Mystery’.

The sound of laughter catching his ears, Sam looked up to see Dean and Emma walking out of the tavern, Dean counting a wad of cash.

“You know, we could get day jobs once in a while,” Sam said, sitting up.

“Hunting’s our day job,” Dean said with a smile.

“And the pay is crap,” Emma finished for him as he counted the money in his hand.

“Yeah, but hustling pool? Credit card scams?” Sam said, clearly disapproving of how the pair in front of him chose to get their income. “Not the most honest thing in the world, guys.”

“Well, lets see. Honest... Fun and easy,” Dean said, holding his hands out either side of him. Mimicking weighing scales, his weight and his mind went towards the hand with the money and the easy option. “It’s no contest. Beside, we’re good at it. It’s what we were raised to do.”

“Well, how we were raised was jacked,” Sam said.

“Yeah, says you,” Dean replied, counting the money in his hands. “We got a new gig or what?” Sam jumps off the car as Dean nods to the paper in his hands.

“Maybe. Oasis planes, Oklahoma. Not far from here. A gas company employee,” Sam said, throwing the newspaper onto the hood of the car for Dean and Emma to see. “Dustin Burwash supposedly died from Cruetzfeldt-Jakob.”

“Huh?” Dean said, confusion written on his face.

“Human mad cow disease,” Emma clarified for him.

“Mad cow. Wasn’t that on Oprah?” Dean said.

“You watch Oprah?” Sam said as he and Emma stared at Dean, their expressions laced with amusement they were having trouble hiding. Dean hesitated, suddenly embarrassed and wishing he hadn’t said a thing.

“So this guy eats a bad burger,” Dean said, trying to change the subject. “Why is it our kind of thing?”

“Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration,” Sam said, taking pity on his brother and getting back to business. “It takes months, even years, for the damage to appear. But this guy Dustin, sounds like his brain disintegrated in about an hour. Maybe less.”

“Ok. That’s weird,” Dean said.

“Yeah. Now, it could be a disease. Or it could be something much nastier.”

“All right. Oklahoma,” Dean said as the trio hopped back into the car. “Man. Work, work, work. No time to spend my money.”

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up outside of Oklahoma Gas & Power, stepping out of the car and walking up to Travis who was stood beside his van.

“Travis Weaver?” Sam said as the trio walked up to him.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Travis said as he turned to them.

“Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?” Dean said.

“Dustin never mentioned nieces or nephews.”

“Really?” Emma said with a bright smile. “Well, he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed with her, keeping up the story.

“Oh, he did?” Travis said, seeming somewhat proud of the fact.

“Listen, we wanted to ask you, what exactly happened out there?” Dean asked, getting right to the point.

“I’m not sure,” Travis told them, the smile fading. “He fell in the sinkhole. I went to the truck to get some rope, and by the time I got back...” His voice trailed off, not wanting to remember what he saw at that construction site.

“What did you see?” Dean asked, needing to get the answer.

“Nothing. Just Dustin,” Travis said.

“No wounds or anything?” Sam said.

“Well, he was bleeding from his eyes and his ears, his nose,” Travis told them. “That’s it.”

“So you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. That’s what the doctors are saying.”

“But if it was, he would’ve acted strange beforehand like dementia, loss of motor control,” Sam said. “You ever notice anything like that?”

“No. No way. But then again if it wasn’t some disease, what the hell was it?”

“That’s a good question,” Dean muttered.

“You know, can you tell us where this happened?” Emma asked, knowing they weren’t gonna get anymore out of Travis.

“Yeah,” Travis told them.

@~~>~~~

Going on the directions Travis had given them, the trio drove into Oasis Planes, pulling up beside the sinkhole Dustin had fallen down and getting out of the car.

“Huh. What do you think?” Dean asked as they ducked beneath the tape surrounding the area.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “But if that guy Travis was right, it happened pretty damn fast.”

“So, what, some sort of creature chewed on his brain?”

“No, there’d be an entry wound,” Emma said. “Sounds like this thing worked from the inside.”

“Looks like there’s only room for one,” Dean said, aiming the flashlight down the hole.

“Well I ain’t going down there,” Emma said, knowing exactly what he was getting at and doing the ‘girly’ thing. No way was she going down a small, dark hole.

“You wanna flip a coin?” Dean said to his brother as the three stood up and Dean walked over to a length of piping nearby.

“Dean, we have no idea what’s down there,” Sam said.

“All right. I’ll go if you’re scared,” Dean said, walking back over to them. “Scared?”

“Flip the damn coin,” Sam said, not all the pleased about being accused of being scared. Dean laughed as he pulled a coin from his pocket.

“All right, call it in the air, chicken,” Dean said, flipping the coin. Sam snatched it out of the air before it could hit Dean’s hand again.

“I’m going,” Sam stated.

“I said I’d go,” Dean said, smiling slightly.

“I’m going,” Sam repeated more adamantly, taking the piping from his brother and tying it round his waist.

“All right,” Dean said, stepping back and taking the other side of the piping.

“Don’t drop me,” Sam said to his brother as Emma moved to him, helping him tie the piping tighter round his waist, making sure herself that he wasn’t dropped.

@~~>~~~

Sam had gone down the sinkhole, and had not been dropped by either his brother or Emma, and he was now sat in the passenger seat of the car, flicking a small, dead beetle he had found down there across the palm of his hand.

“So you found some beetles,” Emma said, leaning forward from the backseat. “In a hole in the ground. That’s shocking, Sam.”

“There were no tunnels,” Sam said, defending his actions. “No tracks, no evidence of any other kind of creature down there. You know, some beetles do eat meat. It’s usually dead meat, but….”

“How many did you find down there?” Dean asked.

“Ten.”

“It’d take a whole lot more than that to eat out some dude’s brain,” Dean said.

“Well, maybe there were more,” Sam said, still defending his actions and his thoughts.

“I don’t know. Sounds like a stretch to me,” Dean said.

“Well, we need more information on the area, the neighbourhood, whether something like this has ever happened before,” Sam said. And an idea came to Dean’s mind as he noticed a sign flashing past the window as they drove.

“What?” Sam asked, noticing his brother’s attention was elsewhere.

“I know a good place to start,” Dean said. Sam and Emma’s attention went the same way Dean’s was, and they saw an advertisement sign for a barbeque.

“I’m kind of hungry for a little barbeque, how about you?” Dean finished with a smile, getting a look from Emma. “What, we can’t talk to the locals?” Again, the look from Emma, knowing there was more to it then that.

“And the free foods got nothing to do with it?” Emma said.

“Of course not. I’m a professional.”

“Right,” Emma said, totally not believing him as Dean pulled up to a nearby curb. Still, Sam and Emma followed him out of the car and towards the house.

“Growing up in a place like this would freak me out,” Dean said, looking round at their surroundings.

“Why?” Sam asked, clearly shocked at his brothers statement.

“The manicured lawns, ‘How was your day, honey’? I’d blow my brains out.”

“There’s nothing wrong with normal,” Sam said, this clearly being the kind of life he would lead.

“I’d take your family over normal any day,” Emma said, stepping back a little to look around at Dean, and probably hers too, idea of hell. Sam and Dean continued towards the house, knocking on the front door. A few seconds later, the door was opened and a middle aged man stood in front of them, smiling brightly.

“Welcome,” he said.

“Is this the barbeque?” Dean said, his smile just as wide.

“Yeah. Not the best weather, but….” He trailed off as he held his hand out to the brothers.

“I’m Larry Pike, the developer here. And you are…?” he introduced himself.

“Dean. This is Sam,” Dean introduced them both. He turned to introduce Emma, only to find her still on the edge of the lawn, looking round at the houses and slowly making her way towards the boys.

“Sam, Dean,” Larry said, drawing Dean’s attention back to him. “Good to meet you. So you two are interested in Oasis Plains?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean said, a little overly friendly.

“Let me just say, we accept homeowners of any race, religion, colour… or sexual orientation.” At his comment all Dean could do is stare while Sam stood there, trying not to laugh. Both, for a moment, were stuck on what to say.

“We’re brothers,” Dean eventually said, reaching behind him and hoping Emma was now close enough. She was, and he pulled her tightly into his side.

“Emma. My girlfriend,” he said matter-of-factly. Smiling brightly at the man she was being introduced, Emma wriggled slightly in Dean’s tight embrace, his hands digging almost painfully into her sides.

“Our father is getting on in years,” Sam continued to explain. “We’re just looking for a place for him.”

“Great. Great. Well, seniors are welcome too. Come on in,” Larry said as he walked back into the house, Sam, Dean and a slightly confused Emma following.

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma followed Larry through the house and into the backyard, smiling and feigning interest at what Larry was telling them.

“You said you were the developer?” Sam asked, continuing with his questioning and knowing it wouldn’t be hard to get answers out of this guy. Very long and drawn out answers. Stepping down from the patio steps, Emma was suddenly sidetracked as another one of Larry’s potential buys bumps into, grabbing her arm and apologising profusely. But even when Emma told him it was ok, she was fine, he carried on talking, keeping her where she was. Smiling, Emma took this opportunity for what it was. A way to get away from Larry’s endless speeches.

Sam and Dean on the other hand, were still trailing behind Larry as he spoke.

“Eighteen months ago,” Larry continued. “I was walking this valley with my survey team. There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels. And you know what, we built such a nice place to live that I actually bought into it myself. This is our house. We’re the first family in Oasis Plains.”

Walking them through the garden as he spoke, Larry now stood beside a middle-aged blonde woman with a friendly face and smile

“This is my wife, Joanie,” Larry introduced the blonde woman.

“Hi there,” Joanie said, offering her hand to Sam and Dean.

“Hi,” Dean said, taking her offered hand.

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” Joanie said again, turning her attention and hand to Sam.

“Sam and Dean,” Larry said, introducing them.

“Pleasure,” Joanie said.

“Tell them how much you love the place, honey,” Larry said to his wife. “And lie if you have to because I need to sell some houses.”

“Right,” Joanie said with a smile.

“Boys, if you’ll excuse me,” Larry said, walking away from the brother’s and his wife. Dean watched him leave, turning his head to see Emma talking to some guy on the other side of the garden. All Dean could do was sigh and turn away. He flirted with girls on a regular basis, so he couldn’t really go off on one at Emma for doing exactly the same things.

“Don’t let his salesman routine scare you,” Joanie said when she had both of the boy’s attention. “This really is a great place to live.” Joanie smiled as another woman with a beaming put on smile and wearing a business suit quickly walked up beside them.

“Hi, I’m Lynda Bloom, head of sales,” she said, introducing herself to what she saw as potential buyers.

“And Lynda was second to move in. She’s a very noisy neighbour, though,” Joanie told the boys as she walked away and Lynda let out a burst of false laughter.

“She’s kidding, of course,” Lynda clarified. “I take it you two are interested in becoming homeowners.”

“Well….” Dean stuttered out.

“Yeah, well….” Sam also stuttered.

“Well, let me just say that we accept homeowners of any race, religion, colour, or sexual orientation,” Lynda said, coming up with exactly the same assumption as Larry had. This time, all Dean could do was smile it off.

“Right,” he said through his forced smile. “I’m gonna go talk to Larry. Ok, honey?” Turning to walk away, Dean lightly tapped Sam on the ass, causing Sam to jump slightly. Sam turned and watched as Dean made his way back to the house, taking a firm hold on Emma’s arm as he walked past her. Sam could see the two arguing before Dean clearly told Emma the full story, the sound of her laughter clear as they walked into the house.

With his brother and Emma gone, Sam turned back to Lynda, smiling falsely and mentally cursing his brother for the situation he had just put him in.

@~~>~~~

Inside the house, Dean and Emma are being shown round the house by Larry.

“You got three choices,” Larry said as they walked down the stairs. “Carpet, hardwood and tile.”

“Whoa,” Emma said as they rounded the corner and saw a number of bug boxes, containing bugs. “Someone likes bugs.”

“My son,” Larry said, distaste evident in his voice. “He’s into insects. He’s very inquisitive.”

“Hmm,” Dean said, following Emma’s gaze to the bug boxes.

@~~>~~~

Back outside, Sam was stood listening to a lengthy discussion from Lynda about the benefits of moving into Oasis Plains.

“Who can say no to a steam shower?” Lynda said, trying her best to sell the place. “I use mine every day.”

“Sounds great,” Sam said with a strained smile that Lynda didn’t seem to notice.

“You also have three different whirlpool tubs to choose from,” she continued. Sam, searching round the yard, noticed the large spider that was slowly making it way towards Lynda’s hand resting against the table. Looking up, Sam saw a young boy watching from a short distance away, holding back his laughter.

“The hardware for the tubs includes nickel, brass, and when you see the kitchen you can choose from….”

“Excuse me,” Sam said, pushing her gently aside and picking the spider up from the table. Holding the arachnid on his hands, Sam made his way over to the young boy.

“Is this yours?” he asked, handing him the spider.

“You gonna tell my dad?” the boy asked, taking the spider from him.

“I don’t know. Who’s your dad?”

“Yeah. Larry usually skips me in the family introductions.”

“Ouch. The first-name basis with the old man sounds pretty grim.”

“Well, I’m not exactly brochure material.”

“Well, hang in there. It gets better, all right. I promise.”

“When?”

“Matthew!” Larry’s voice rang out before Sam could answer him. Sam turned to see Larry marching over to him, Dean and Emma trailing behind.

“I am so sorry about my son and his pet,” Larry said, emphasising the last word as he stopped beside his son, Matt.

“It’s no bother,” Sam said sincerely.

“Excuse us,” Larry said, guiding Matt away from them.

“Remind you of somebody?” Sam said to Dean as he and Emma stopped in front of him. Dean looked over at Larry yelling at Matt the turned back to Sam, genuinely unsure of what he meant.

“Dad?” Sam clarified for him.

“Dad never treated us like that,” Dean said.

“Well, dad never treated you like that. You were perfect. He was all over my case,” Sam said, to which Dean just stared at him blankly, shaking his head.

“You don’t remember?”

“Maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes you were out of line.” Sam reaction to Dean’s statement was a short burst of laughter.

“Right. Right. Like when I said I’d rather play soccer than learn bowhunting.”

“Bowhuntings an important skill,” Dean said as if it was a matter that needed defending.

“Whatever. How was your tour?” Sam asked. Emma, who had been silence the entire time the boys had been having their little discussion, deciding now was the best time make her voice heard. And safest probably.

“Oh, it was excellent. I’m ready to buy,” Emma said, trying to lighten the situation. “So you might be on to something. Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn’t the first strange death around here.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“About a year ago, before they broke ground, one of Larry’s surveyors dropped dead while on the job. Get this: a severe allergic reaction to bee stings.”

“More bugs,” Sam said.

“More bugs,” Dean said.

“I think we should get out of here,” Emma said, turning to the boys with an evil grin. “You know, before Lynda over there has you guys picking out the floral wall paper for your shared room. Or worse, matching his and… his towels.” Backing away from the boys so she could still see them, Emma tried to contain her laughter.

“Unless you wanna admit Sam wears the pants in the relationship,” Emma said, her attention now solely on Dean. “Because I know it ain’t you, Dean.”

Letting her laughter out, Emma turned away and walked away from the brothers. Sam and Dean exchanged a look before Dean rushed forward, gripping Emma’s waist from behind and making her shriek loudly and jump. While the rest of the potential buyers glared at the young couple, Dean and Emma quick stepped out of the garden, laughing quietly behind their hands. Sam on the other, smiled embarrassingly at the guests as he past them, following begrudgingly after his brother and Emma.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, the pair drove back through Oasis Plains, Sam driving with Dean beside him and Emma in the backseat behind the boys. Sam flicked his eyes between the couple, sighing deeply while both seemed to be in their own worlds, Dean flicking through their father’s journal and Emma with her head lay back against the seat.

“You know, we’re gonna be lucky if Larry lets us near those houses again,” Sam said into the silence. “You guys could have blown this.”

“Hey, I didn’t want the whole neighbourhood thinking you and me were a couple, bro,” Dean said, knocking Emma out of her relaxed stupor and laughing slightly. Unaware to Emma, Dean glanced quickly back at her, smiling.

“Even if it meant admitting I was with her,” Dean said motioning to the girl sat in the back seat.

“Hey!” Emma cried out, a shocked look on her face as she smacked Dean across the back of his head. Dean just continued smiling widely.

“I’ve got a reputation to uphold, girl. It’s going down a peg for me with a crazy girl like you.” Again, Emma swung out to smack Dean again, but Dean was quicker this time, grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer from the backseat.

“You wanna quit that,” he told her, still smiling. “You know I’m jokin’ babe.” Letting go of her wrist, Dean kissed his girl. And with her man somewhat distracted, Emma took the opportunity to get in the smack across the back of Dean’s hand he had stopped her from a minute ago. Pulling away, Dean stared at Emma with wide eyes.

“That was for saying it in the first place,” she said with a smile.

“Guys. Back to the case please,” Sam said, breaking up this little scene.

“Yeah,” Dean said as they pulled their attention back to the job at hand. Dean went back to his father’s journal while Emma leant against his chair, running her hand through his hair where she had smacked him twice as if soothing the spot.

“You know I’ve heard of killer bees, but killer beetles?” Dean said, flicking through the journal. “What is it that could make different bugs attack?”

“Well, hauntings sometimes include bug manifestation,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t see any evidence of ghost activity.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Emma agreed.

“Maybe they’re being controlled somehow,” Dean suggested. “You know, by something or someone.”

“You mean like Willard?” Emma said off-handedly.

“Yeah. Bugs instead of rats.”

“There are cases of psychic connections between people and animals,” Sam said. “Elementals, telepaths.”

“Yeah, the whole Timmy-Lassie thing,” Dean said, thinking for a moment.

“Larry’s kid,” Dean came up with. “Bugs for pet’s.”

“Matt?” Sam said, giving his name.

“Yeah.”

“He did try to scare the realtor with a tarantula.”

“Think he’s out Willard?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know. Anything’s possible, I guess,” Sam said, while Dean’s attention was held by something out of the window

“Oh, hey, pull over here,” Dean said suddenly. Sam did as he was told, pulling into the driveway of an empty house.

“What are we doing here?” Sam asked as Dean got out of the car, Emma following.

“It’s too late to talk to anybody else,” Dean said simply, opening up the garage door.

“We’re gonna squat in an empty house?” Sam said, getting the picture. Dean nodded, making Emma smile widely.

“I wanna try the steam shower. Come on,” Dean said. Emma leaped at him, kissing his cheek.

“I love you at times,” she exclaimed, her arms still wrapped round him. “Even when you are a jerk to me.”

“Come on!” Dean said with a smile at his girlfriend, noting the look Sam was giving him. Sam reluctantly drove into the garage Dean was still holding open. Passing by his brother, Sam reached out the open window and punched his brother in the stomach. Dean just rolled through the punch and closed the garage door after the car was inside.

@~~>~~~

In one of the house on the blocks that was actually lived in, Lynda Bloom walked into her bedroom, turning her lamp on as she threw her coat on the bed. Relaxing on the edge of the bed, Lynda pulled her hair from the tight clip and flicked on the TV, hitting the news station.

“Atoka Valley County began mandatory insecticide spraying across a wide swath of the district today,” the female news reporter began saying. “Authorities say the decision to spray was made because of several recent case of West Nile virus coupled with a dramatic increase in the mosquito population in some areas. Although some residents site concerns about the high levels of pesticide….”

While Lynda’s attention was caught by the news report, a solitary spider crawls down her face. Gasping and swatting it away, Lynda flicked the TV off, heading into the bathroom. Turning to total relaxation after a day on her feet, Lynda stepped under the hot spray of the shower, the aches and pains of her muscles washing away under the water and steam. With her back turned to the shower head, Lynda failed to notice the spider crawling across her bathroom wall from the shower head. But she did her the scurrying. And what she saw made her scream.

Crawling out from the shower head were now maybe thousands of spiders, crawling along her bathroom wall. Trying to make a quick exit from the shower stall, Lynda slipped falling through the glass plate, her blood mixing with the still running water.

Outside the shower stall, lay in the floor amongst the broken glass, was Lynda, her blood drops making a trail up to her dead body, the spiders from the shower wall crawling across her body.

@~~>~~~

Next morning in the house Sam, Dean and Emma had ‘borrowed’ for the night, Emma walked down the upstairs hall, following the sound of running water.

“You ever coming out of there?” Emma called into the closed bathroom door.

“What?” Dean’s voice called back to her.

“Dean, a police call came in on the scanner,” Emma called, this time banging on the bathroom door.

“Hold on,” Dean replied, turning the water, which was clearly the shower, off.

“Someone was found dead three blocks from here. Come on.” In reply, Dean this time spoke face to face, swinging the bathroom door open wearing two towels, one round his head and one covering his dignity round his waist.

“This shower is awesome,” he said excitedly with a wide smile. As usual around Dean, Emma laughed despite herself.

“Come on!” Emma said, turning to walk away. As she did, Dean pulled her back to him, kissing her. Smiling against his lips, Emma pulled away from him, pulling Dean’s dignity towel with her, which only caused Dean to close the door further to hide said dignity.

“Move it,” Emma said with a sly smile, chucking Dean’s towel back to him as she walked away and Dean closed the bathroom door again.

@~~>~~~

With Dean out of the shower, Sam, Dean and Emma followed their police report back down to Oasis Planes. To Lynda, the realtors, house to be exact. The three pulled up outside the crime scene where there were police cars and ambulances already in place. Getting out of the car in the rain, Sam and Dean opened up two umbrella’s, Emma linking her arm through Dean’s for the cover, and walked towards where Larry was stood on his cell phone with his own umbrella.

“Look, I don’t know anything more right now,” Larry was saying in to the phone. “I’ll have to call you back. All right.” Larry hung up, looking up as Sam, Dean and Emma came to a stop in front of him.

“Hello. You’re, uh, back early,” he said nervously to the trio.

“Yeah, we just drove in, wanted to take another look at the neighbourhood,” Dean said casually.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“You guys met Lynda Bloom at the barbeque?” Larry said, turning to watch as the woman in question was loaded into the back of the coroner van in a body bag.

“The realtor,” Sam said.

“Well, she uh… passed away last night,” Larry told them.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

“I’m still trying to find out. I identified the body for the police,” Larry said, turning to the police at the house door just in time to see them motioning him over.

“Look, I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time,” Larry said politely, turning back to the group of what he saw as potential buyers.

“It’s ok,” Emma said equally as polite with a small smile.

“Excuse me,” Larry said, walking over to the house.

“You know what we have to do, right?” Dean said once Larry was out of ear shot.

“Yeah,” Sam said simply. “Get in that house.”

“See if we got a bug problem,” Emma finished.

@~~>~~~

Once the police emptied out of the house, Sam, Dean and Emma decided it was their turns to look around. Professionals of a different kind.

Climbing a fence and jumping through a window at the side of the house, the group got into the house somewhat illegally, instantly finding the crime scene, with the black outline of Lynda’s body as well as the left over blood.

“This looks like the place,” Dean said, stepping cautiously over the body outline and into the bathroom. Picking up one of the towels from the bathroom floor, a number of dead spiders fell out of it.

“Spiders,” Dean said, turning up to Sam and Emma. “From Spider-Boy?”

“Matt,” Sam corrected. “Maybe.”

@~~>~~~

Following up on what was now their only lead, Sam, Dean and Emma sat in the car watching as Matt got off his school bus. But it wasn’t towards his house where he was heading.

“Isn’t his house that way?” Dean stated, pointing in the opposite direction to where Matt was heading.

“Yep,” Sam said, watching as Matt walked into a wooded area.

“So where’s he going?” Emma said. To find out there answer, the three got out of the car, following Matt. They found him in a dense area of the woods, picking a grasshopper from a tree branch.

“Hey, Matt,” Sam said as the young boy turned to him. “Remember me?”

“What are you doing out here?” Sam asked, surprised to see the trio here.

“Well, we wanna talk to you,” Dean said.

“You’re not here to buy a house, are you?” Matt said, stating what was now plainly obvious. “Wait. You’re not serial killers?” he finished, getting a little weary of the trio while they smiled at his statement.

“No, no,” Emma said with a small laugh. “No, I think you’re safe.”

“So, Matt, you sure know a lot about insects,” Dean said with a sarcastic smile.

“So?” Matt said.

“Did you hear what happened to Lynda, the realtor?”

“I hear she died this morning.”

“That’s right. Spider bites,” Dean said, trying to bait the boy out.

“Matt, you tried to scare her with a spider,” Sam said, trying to take the softer approach.

“Wait. You think I had something to do with that?” Matt said.

“You tell us?” Emma said, her voice taking a tone somewhere between Sam and Dean’s approach.

“That tarantula was a joke,” Matt said, desperately trying to defend himself. “Anyway, that wouldn’t explain the bee attack or the gas-company guy.”

“You know about those?” Sam said.

“There is something going on here,” Matt said. “I don’t know what, but… something’s happening with the insects. Let me show you something.” Picking up his bag, Matt walked further into the woods, Sam, Dean and Emma exchanging a quick look before following him.

“So if you knew about all this bug stuff, why not tell your dad?” Sam asked as they walked. “Maybe he could clear everybody out.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried, but, uh… Larry doesn’t listen to me,” Matt said.

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“Mostly? He’s too disappointed in his freak son.”

“I hear ya.”

“You do?” Dean said, which earned him a look from Sam before turning back to talk to Matt.

“Matt, how old are you?” Sam asked.

“Sixteen,” Matt answered.

“Well don’t sweat, because in two years something great’s gonna happen.”

“What?”

“College. You’ll be able to get out of that house and away from your dad.”

“What kind of advice is that?” Dean said, a hint of some hidden emotions in his voice. “Kid should stick with his family.”

Sam stopped suddenly, turning to Dean with a death glare which Dean returned as the two stared each other down. Holding them apart, Emma pushed her way between the two, talking directly to Matt.

“How much further, Matt?” Emma asked.

“We’re close,” Matt said, continuing further into the woods. Before following the young boy, Emma turned and smacked Dean across the back of the head.

“Quit it,” Emma said, turning to also smack Sam across the back of the head. “Both of you.”

Leaving the two boys to rub the sore spots on the back of their heads, Emma followed Matt. It was a few seconds before Sam and Dean followed her, and the four now stood in a clearing where there was a high and definite sound of buzzing.

“I’ve been keeping track of insect populations,” Matt told them. “It’s part of an AP science class.”

“You two are like peas in a pod,” Dean said sarcastically. Sam glanced quickly back at his brother, rolling his eyes.

“What’s been happening?” he asked Matt.

“A lot. I mean, from bees to earthworms, beetles, you name it. It’s like they’re congregating here.”

“Why?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know,” Matt answered truthfully, while this whole time, Emma had been staring out into the clearing.

“What’s that?” she asked the boys around her, motioning out to a large mound of earth towards the opposite edge of the clearing. She looked over at Matt, who simply shrugged, then turned to her two boys. Dean also shrugged, but walked out towards it to investigate, Sam, Emma and Matt following. Dean tapped his foot against the top of the dirt, the light motion making the earth sink inwards to a small hole. Bending down with the other three stood around him, Dean poked into the hole with a stick, the wood tapping against something inside.

“There’s something down there,” Dean said to Sam and Emma as he reached down into the whole, digging through the mud while Emma watched him with a slightly disgusted look on her face, showing her girly side over the wet dirt and earthworm that her boyfriend was digging his hand through. “Come on. Come on,” Dean mumbled to himself, digging deeper into the hole.

“Don’t think about touching me anytime soon,” Emma joked slightly while Dean finally pulled his hand from the dirt hole, pulling a human skull with it.

@~~>~~~

Searching for the origin of their newfound pile of skulls, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up to a college campus. Opening the backseat, Sam covered the box of skulls with his coat before carrying it out and following Dean and Emma up to the campus steps.

“So a bunch of skeletons in an unmarked grave,” Sam said casually.

“Well, maybe this is a haunting,” Dean suggested. “Pissed-off spirits, some unfinished business?”

“Yeah, maybe. The question is, why bugs? And why now?”

“That’s two questions,” Emma said, taking up Dean’s post and trying to make the situation light.

“Hey, so with that kid back there, how could you tell him to just ditch his family like that?” Dean said to his brother, not taking Emma’s opportunity to keep a light tone to their conversation.

“Just, eh, I know what the kid’s going through,” Sam said.

“How about telling him to respect his old man? How’s that for advice?” Dean said.

“Dean, come on,” Sam said, coming to an abrupt stop and causing Dean and Emma to stop in front of him. “This isn’t about his old man. You think I didn’t respect dad. That’s what this is about.”

“Let’s just forget it, all right. Sorry I brought it up,” Dean said, beginning to walk away.

“I respected him,” Sam called after his brother. “But no mater what I did, it was never good enough.”

“So what are you saying, that dad was disappointed in you?” Dean said, stopping again.

“ ‘Was’? Is. Always has been,” Sam said.

“Why would you think that?” Dean asked.

“Because I didn’t want to bowhunt. Or hustle pool. Because I wanted to go to school and live my life. Which, in our whacked-out family, made me the freak.”

“Yeah, you were kind of like the blonde chick in The Munsters.”

“Dean, you know what most dads are when their kids score a full ride? Proud. Most dads don’t toss their kids out of the house.”

“I remember that fight,” Emma said softly, speaking up for the first time during this little argument as she did indeed remember one little part of her childhood in the Winchester household.

“I seem to recall a few choice phrases coming out of your mouth,” Dean continued.

“You know, truth is, when we finally do find dad, I don’t know if he’s even gonna want to see me,” Sam said.

“Sam, your dad was never disappointed in you. Never,” Emma said, trying to defuse the situation as best she could.

“He was scared,” Dean finished.

“What are you talking about?” Sam said.

“He was afraid of what could’ve happened to you if he wasn’t around,” Dean said.

“But even when you two weren’t talking, he used to swing by Standford whenever he could,” Emma said calmly. “Keep an eye on you. Make sure you were safe.”

“What?” Sam said, this being news to him.

“Yeah,” Dean said simply.

“Why didn’t he tell me any of that?”

“Well, it’s a two-way street, doll,” Emma said with a gently smile. “You could have picked up the phone.”

For a moment, the three stood silent outside of the campus, tears forming in the back of Sam’s eyes as he processed this new information.

“Come on. We’re gonna be late for our appointment,” Dean said, breaking the moment when he and Emma continued walking into the campus, Sam following a second later.

@~~>~~~

Inside the campus in a large lecture hall, Sam, Dean and Emma are waiting for their answers. And they come in the form of the professor as he walks back in carrying their box of skulls.

“So you three are students?” he asked the trio as they stand as he enters.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Yeah. We’re in your class. Antro 101.”

“Oh, yeah,” the professor said, placing the box down on the desk while Sam, Dean and Emma stand in front of him.

“So, what about the bones, professor?” Dean asked.

“This is quite an interesting find you’ve made,” the professor tole the three. “I’d say they’re 170 years old, give or take. The time frame and the geography heavily suggest Native American.”

“Were there any tribes or reservations on that land?” Sam asked.

“Not according to the historical records,” the professor said. “But the, uh… relocation of native peoples was quite common at that time.”

“Right,” Emma said with her typical, sweet you-know-you-wanna-tell-me-everything smile. “Well, are there any local legends? Oral histories about the area?”

“Well, you know, there’s a Euchee tribe in Sapulpa,” the professor said. “It’s about 60 miles from here. Someone out there might know the truth.”

“All right,” Dean said, smiling cheerfully at the two with him.

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma made their way down to the Euchee tribe with their box of skulls. Pulling up beside a local, Dean stuck his head out, asking where they could get the rest of their information. He pointed them off in the opposite direction and Dean drove off, raise his hand in a thank you to the local.

Parking outside a small café, the trio got out and stepped inside, looking round at the patrons. Dean was the first to notice an old man sat at a nearby table playing solitaire. Pointing him out to Sam and Emma, they stood beside his table.

“Joe White tree?” Sam asked, watching as the old man looked up at them and nodded. “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.”

“We’re students from the university,” Dean said.

“No you’re not. You’re lying,” Joe said, his attention still on his card game.

“Ermm, well, truth is….” Emma tried.

“You know who starts sentence with ‘truth is’? Liars,” Joe told them, easily catching out the pairs bluff. Giving up, Dean and Emma turned to Sam, letting him have an attempt at getting the information they needed out of this guy.

“Have you heard of Oasis Plains?” Sam said. “It’s a housing development near the Atoka Valley.” Joe stared at Sam for a seond before turning back to Dean and Emma.

“I like him. He’s not a liar,” he told the pair then turned back to speak to Sam. “I know the area.”

“What can you tell us about the history there?” Sam asked.

“Why do you wanna know?”

“Something…. Something bad is happening in Oasis Plains. We think it might have something to do with some old bines we found down there. Native American bones.”

“I’ll tell you what my grandfather told me. What his grandfather told him,” Joe said, beginning his story. “Two hundred years ago, a band of my ancestors lived in that valley. One day, the American cavalry came to relocate them. They were resistant, the cavalry impatient. As my grandfather put it: ‘On the night the moon and the sun share the sky as equals, the cavalry first raided our village’. They murdered, raped. The next day, the cavalry came again. And the next and the next. And on the sixth night, the cavalry came one last time. And by the time the sun rose, every man, woman and child still in the village was dead.” Joe paused slightly, and Sam Dean and Emma exchanged a look, what this might have to do with their current problem running through their minds.

“They say in the sixth night,” Joe continued. “As the chief of the village lay dying, he whispered to the heavens, that no white man would ever tarnish this land again. That nature would rise up and protect the valley. And it would bring as many days of misery and death to the white man as the cavalry had brought upon his people.”

“Insects,” Dean said. “Sounds like nature to me. Six days.”

“And on the night of the sixth day, none would survive.”

@~~>~~~

With their new information, Sam, Dean and Emma headed out back towards their car.

“When did the gas-company man die?” Sam asked as they walked.

“Let’s see,” Dean said. “We got here Tuesday, so Friday the 20th.”

“March 20th. That’s the spring equinox,” Emma said.

“The night the sun and the moon share the sky as equals,” Dean repeated what Joe had said.

“So every year about this time, anybody in Oasis plains is in danger,” Sam said. “Larry built his neighbourhood on cursed land.”

“And on the sixth night, that’s tonight.”

“If we don’t do something, Larry’s family will be dead by sunrise. So how do we break a curse?”

“You don’t break a curse,” Emma said as they stopped beside the car, getting in. “You get out of its way. We gotta get those people out now.”

@~~>~~~

At Larry’s house on the cursed land of Oasis Planes, Matt was exploring around his backyard with a flashlight, alerted by a sound behind him. Moving across the yard, he knelt beside a small indent in the ground, knocking aside stray dirt with his hand. And as he did, the ground erupted with cockroaches, crawling on the dirt and over his hand. Swatting them away, Matt stood and watched as more and more cockroaches crawled to the surface before he headed back towards his house.

@~~>~~~

With the sun set and the time of the curse slowly approaching, Sam, Dean and Emma sped down towards Larry’s house, Dean with his cell phone pressed to his ear and Larry on the other end.

“Yes, Mr. Pike,” Dean spoke into the phone. “There’s a mainline gas leak in your neighbourhood.”

“God. Really?” Larry replied, and it was clear to anyone, except perhaps Dean that Larry really didn’t believe him. “How big?”

“Well, it’s fairly extensive. I don’t wanna alarm you, but we you’re your family out of the vicinity for at least 12 hours or so. Just to be safe.”

“And who is this again?”

“Travis Weaver,” Dean lied. “I work for Oklahoma Gas and Power.”

“Uh-huh,” Larry said casually. “Well the problem is, I know Travis. He’s worked with us for a year. So who is this?”

“Errr….” Dean stuttered slightly before snapping the phone shut in defeat.

“Give me the phone,” Sam said, grabbing it from his brother and dialling. The phone dialled through to Matt, sat in his room.

“Hello?” Matt answered after around two rings.

“Matt, it’s Sam,” Sam voice replied from the other end of the phone.

“Sam, my backyards crawling with cockroaches.”

“Matt, just listen. You have to get your family out of that house right now, ok?”

“What? Why?”

“Because something’s coming.”

“More bugs.”

“Yeah,” Sam answered, glancing quickly over at the two other occupants of the car. “A lot more.”

“My dad doesn’t listen in the best of circumstances. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“You gotta make him listen, ok?”

“Give me the phone. Give me the phone,” Emma said, this time her snatching the phone away as she leant forward to the front seat.

“Matt, under no circumstances are you to tell the truth,” Emma called down the phone. “He’ll just think you’re nuts.”

“But… but he’s my….” Matt stammered out.

“Tell him you have a sharp pain in your right side and you gotta go to the hospital, ok?”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok,” Matt said as both him and Emma hung up. Emma slapped the phone back into Sam’s lap, glancing forward at him.

“ ‘Make him listen’,” she mimicked. “What are you thinking?”

@~~>~~~

Hoping that Matt had managed to succeeded in getting his family out of their house and Oasis Planes, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up outside the house….

Only to find the family car still parked outside.

“Damn it. They’re still here. Come on,” Dean said as the three jumped out of the car. From the living room window, Larry watched as the three approached his house. He raced outside himself, followed by his son.

“Get off my property before I call the cops,” Larry called out to the trio heading up his path.

“Mr. Pike, listen….” Sam called out as the three came to a stop.

“Dad, they’re just trying to help,” Matt called from over his father’s shoulder.

“Get in the house,” Larry called back to his son. Matt looked over at Emma, who was giving him a look.

“Sorry. I told him the truth,” Matt said to Emma.

“We had a plan, Matt. What happened to the plan?” Emma said.

“Look, it’s 12 am,” Sam said, bringing the conversation back to the main point. “They are coming any minute now. You need to get your family and go. Before it’s too late.”

“You mean, before the biblical swarm?” Larry said sceptically.

“Larry, what do you think really happened to the realtor?” Dean butt in. “Huh. And the gas-company guy. You don’t think something weird’s going on around here?”

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but you’re crazy,” Larry spat out. “You come near my boy or my family again, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“Well, I hate to be a downer, but we got a problem right now,” Dean spat back.

“Dad, they’re right,” Matt finally spoke up again. “Ok, we’re in danger.”

“Matt, get inside!” Larry called back to his son again.

“No!” Matt said in reply.

“Now!”

“Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Because this is crazy!” Larry cried out in all honesty. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Look, this land is cursed,” Sam said, being the sensible one as always. “People have died here. Now are you gonna really take that risk with your family?”

“Wait,” Emma said, stopping her friends rant as something else hit her ears. “You hear it?”

They did. In the distance, heading quickly their way was the sound of buzzing. The insect kind.

“What the hell…?” Larry stammered out as flies hit against the porch light, making it crackle with electricity.

“All right, it’s time to go,” Dean said, being the decisive one as always. “Larry, get your wife.”

“Yeah,” Larry said, suddenly believe them and turning to head back inside his house.

“Guys?” Matt said, his eyes staring out down the street. The others followed his stare and saw thousands and thousands of flies heading their way like a blanket across the sky.

“Oh, my God,” Larry said, suddenly seeing that there was no way any of the people around him could be lying.

“We’ll never make it,” Emma said simply, stating what was clearly the obvious.

“Everybody in the house. Everybody in the house! Go!” Listening to Dean’s commands, he, Sam, Emma, Matt and Larry ran back into the house, slamming the door shut behind themselves.

“Is there anyone else in the neighbourhood?” Sam asked Larry.

“No, it’s just us,” Larry answered as his wife walked out from the living room.

“Honey, what’s happening?” Joanie asked her husband. “What’s that noise?”

“Call 911,” Larry called to her as a reply. Joanie did nothing, she just stared at her husband. “Joanie!” Larry called again, knocking her out of her stupor.

“Ok,” Joanie said weakly, walking off to the phone.

“I need towels,” Dean called out to Larry.

“The closet,” Larry replied, running off with Dean and Emma to retrieve them.

“All right, we gotta lock this place up,” Sam said to Matt. “Doors, windows, the fireplace, everything, ok?” With a small nod, Matt followed the urgent Sam up the stairs while his mother held the phone against her ear, listening.

“The phones are dead,” Joanie said as Dean, Emma and Larry came back into the room, arms laid with blankets.

“Must have chewed through the phone lines,” Dean said as he and Emma knelt beside the front door, rolling blankets into the crack between door and floor. The lights in the house all suddenly blinked out, leaving them only with the small and creepy illumination from the moonlight streaming through the windows.

“And the power lines,” Emma said simply, looking round at the darkened house.

“Maybe my cell….” Larry said, grabbing for his cell from the desk draw. “No signal,” he said when he looked down at the useless cell in his hands.

“You want get one,” Dean said, picking up on something else on the windows. “They’re blanketing the house.”

Emma, Larry and Joanie watched as well as tons of flies and other flying insects slapped heavily against the windows, covering them with a dark sheet that began blocking out what little light was coming through. Sam and Matt now joined the group downstairs, the upstairs now secured.

“So, what do we do now?” Larry asked, turning to Sam, Dean and Emma, who he now considered the experts in this.

“We try to outlast it,” Sam said as Dean, without a word, dashed off towards the kitchen. “Hopefully the curse will end at sunrise.”

“ ‘Hopefully’?” Joanie said sceptically.

In the kitchen, Dean was now rummaging through all the different products under the sink, trying to ignore the almost eerie sound of both the buzzing of the flies and the slaps as they hit against the windows. Keeping his attention on the boxes beneath the sink, Dean finally found what he was looking for. A can of bug spray.

Heading back to the others, Dean received an odd look from Joanie when she saw what he was now holding in his hand.

“Bug spray?” she said questioningly.

“Trust me,” Dean said. Just then, the soft sound of creaking echoing from the living room joined all the other all too disconcerting sounds around the house.

“What is that?” Matt’s scared voice squeaked out as Sam, Dean and Emma walked tentively into the living room.

“The flue,” Emma said softly, knowing all too well what was happening. And so did the brothers.

“All right, I think everybody needs to get upstairs,” Dean called to the others, backing towards the stairs carefully but quickly. Just then, the last thing in the world they had wanted to happen happened as the flue broke and thousands of wasps darting out into the house. A woman scream, clearly Joanie’s, rang through the house as the group ran for the stairs, ducking, covering and swatting away the wasps. Dean picking up the rear of the group, held up his light lighter to the spray can and sprayed, turning the can in to a flame-educed mini weapon he aimed at the approaching insects.

“Everybody upstairs!” Dean yelled to the group behind him. “Now! Go, go, go! Go!”

The five of them obeyed, running past Dean and up the stairs while he continuing spraying his mini flame thrower towards the insects. Once the others were past him, Dean stopped his flame, concentrating on running up the stairs after the others, where they were heading to the loft. Larry pulled down the loft door and ladder, sending his wife and son up before him.

“Go on Matt, go!” Larry called as Matt crawled into the loft, climbing up after him. Sam, Dean and Emma quickly following them, Dean spraying his make-shift flame thrower at the opening of the loft, discouraging any insects from coming closer.

“Come on!” he called to his brother and girlfriend, who closed the loft door and followed him over to where there were small holes being made in the ceiling, sawdust falling like small torrents of snow.

“Oh, God. What’s that?” Joanie said, the fear really kicking in now.

“Something’s eating through the wood,” Dean said in answer.

“Termites,” Matt said, answering the unspoken question.

“All, right, everybody get back,” Emma commanded the rest of the civilians to their group. “Get back! Get back!”

Listening, Matt, Larry and Joanie moved towards the back of the loft just as the half eaten section of the loft fell through, letting in a swarm of angry wasps. While Dean set alight the can again, Sam began kicking away a section of panel from a nearby box. Seeing what he was doing and getting the idea, Emma kicked loses a pole from the edge of the room.

“You got it?” Sam asked as he held the panel against the hole in the roof.

“Yeah,” Emma called back, propping the panel in place with the pole. But all was for nothing as another section of roof fell in, letting through more wasps. Matt, Larry and Joanie cowered further in the corner, Sam and Emma joining them while Dean sprayed the bug spray/flame thrower towards the incoming wasps. The first hole fell through again, just as the spray can ran out and their only good weapon against these bugs was lost.

“Oh, crap!” Dean yelled, throwing the empty can across the room and ducking with the others. The group huddled together, covering themselves from the onslaught of wasps streaming in through the holes in the roof. They covered their coats and clothing over their heads, Dean’s arms and jacket wrapped round Emma, feeling the need to protect his girl even though he knew she didn’t need protecting.

“Look,” Matt suddenly said, pointing out towards the open roof. The rest of the group followed his gaze to see the morning sunlight now streaming into the attic. Sam, Dean and Emma slowly got to the feet, standing below the new skylight, watching as the wasps that had once been their attackers fled into the early morning sky.

@~~>~~~

With now both the trauma of the night and the case over for Sam, Dean and Emma, They pulled up outside Larry’s house to see him packing up a removals van with all their household items.

“What, no goodbye?” Dean said as the trio stepped up to Larry beside the van.

“Good timing,” Larry said with a small smile as he turned to them. “Another hour and we’d have been gone.”

“For good?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. The developments been put on hold while the government investigates those bones you found. But I’m gonna make damn sure no one lives here again.”

“You don’t seem to upset about it,” Emma said with a small smile of her own.

“Well, this has been the biggest financial disaster of my career, but….” Larry trailed off as he watched Matt walked out of the house with a number of his boxes.

“Somehow… I really don’t care,” Larry finished as he turned back to Sam, Dean and Emma, who in turned smile back, glad to see there was something else they had managed to achieve on this case.

Pulling away from the others, Sam walked over to Matt, watching as he threw away seemingly everything he owned that was bug like.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know,” Matt replied with a short laugh. “They kind of weird me out now.”

“Yeah, I should hope so,” Sam said with a small laugh himself.

After saying their goodbyes, Dean and Emma leaned against the car, watching and waiting as Sam walked back to them, leaning beside Emma. They watched for a second as Larry and Matt walked back into the house, communicating like they never had before.

“I wanna find dad,” Sam suddenly spoke into the silence.

“Yeah, me too,” Dean replied, while Emma silently agreed with a nod, wanting the only family she had ever known back together just as much as the boys.

“Yeah, but I just…. I wanna apologise to him,” Sam said.

“For what?”

“All the things I said to him. He was just doing the best he could.” After his words, Emma leaned into Sam, hugging herself against his side.

“Well, don’t worry,” Emma said into his shoulder. “We’ll find him. And you’ll apologise. And then within fives minutes, you guy’s will be at each other’s throats.”

“Yeah, probably,” Sam said with a laugh, swinging his arm round his friend s shoulders and sitting for a minute with her hugged to his side.

“Let’s hit the road,” he said finally, pulling away and standing up.

“Let’s,” Dean said, him and Emma following Sam into the car, the three driving away with the residual hope that it wouldn’t be long before this somewhat dysfunctional family was back together again.


	9. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam is haunted by a vision of a woman trapped in his childhood house and convinces a reluctant Dean and Emma that they need to go home. Upon arrival, they meet the woman in Sam's premonition and she reveals that the house is haunted. Looking into their personal history, the group discover the boy’s father had visited a psychic after their mother's death and they turn to the same woman for answers of their own, as well as revealing more about Emma’s past before the Winchesters. Together they discover a malevolent poltergeist has inhabited the house and set out to exorcise it, but are blindsided when another unseen spirit steps in.

Lawrence, Kansas, and a house all too familiar to the Winchester duo and their travelling companion. But now, their childhood home was occupied by a young woman. The young woman, Jenny, sat surrounded by boxes, her eyes welling with tears as she looked through old photos. A slight laugh bubbled in her throat as she flicked to a picture of herself and her husband on their wedding day and memories both good and bad flooded through her mind.

“Mommy?” A small voice spoke out from behind her. Slightly shocked, Jenny looked up to see her daughter, Sari, stood in the doorway.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said softly. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“There’s something in my closet,” Sari answered. Jenny smiled lightly and accompanied her daughter back to her bedroom. With her daughter sat tentively on the end of her bed while Jenny searched round the room, proving to her Sari there was nothing but the two of them in the room.

“See?” Jenny said, opening the doors to Sari’s walk in closet and looking inside. “There’s nothing there.”

“You’re sure,” Sari said.

“I’m sure,” Jenny replied, closing the closet doors and turning back to her daughter. “Now, come on. Into bed.” Sari did as she was told, climbing under the covers as her mother sat beside her.

“I don’t like this house,” Sari said simply, lying her head against the pillows.

“You’re just not used to it yet,” Jenny reassured her. “But you and your brother and me, we are going to be very happy here. I promise.” Jenny kissed her daughter on the forehead, softly uttering, “I love you,” as she turned off the bedside light and went to leave the room.

“The chair,” Sari called after her mother.

“Ok. Right,” Jenny said, understanding and moving a chair in front of the cupboard doors, wedging them closed. “The chair. Just to be safe.”

With a final smile, Jenny closed the door and left her daughter to sleep peacefully.

@~~>~~~

With her daughter asleep upstairs, Jenny went back to unpacking their boxes downstairs. She was interrupted again, but this time by the soft sound of scratching from below her.

“Please, God, don’t let it be rats,” Jenny mumbled as she grabbed a flashlight and made her way to the basement. She flicked the first switch by the bottom of the stairs, but nothing happened. Walking a little further into the dark basement, she tried again to pull the string switch in the centre of the room. Still no light.

“Terrific,” she said, walking further through the basement, her flashlight the only source of light she had. So, in her next couple of steps, she managed to smack her head against something hanging from the ceiling. Ducking below it, her flashlight beam caught across a blue dust covered box in the corner that she didn’t recognise. Bending down to investigate, Jenny found a number of photo’s inside. Photo’s of a family she didn’t recognise. Flipping through the photo’s, Jenny came to one of a whole family stood in front of the house she was now trying to move into. Smiling slightly, Jenny flicked the picture over and read the picture over, reading what was written on the back.

‘The Winchesters Plus One. John, Mary, Dean, Emma and Little Sammy.’

@~~>~~~

Back in little Sari’s room and the young girl still can’t sleep. Tuck tight under the covers, trying to the remember what her mother had said, she is disturbed by a soft scraping as the chair began slowly moving away from the cupboard doors. She sits up with a gasp, watching, terrified, as the chair moves completely away from the cupboard doors and they begin opening.

Unable to tear her terrified eyes away from the scene in front of her, Sari watched as from inside the now open cupboard, a fire starts up, taking the shape of a human body. Pulling her covers tighter around herself, all Sari could do was scream.

@~~>~~~

Outside the house, looking up at the top window, anyone watching outside could see Jenny, pounding against the window, screaming inaudible words of help.  
And so can Sam as, miles away from the scene, a trucks horn pulls the young man awake, gasping for breath in his motel room bed. Looking beside him, he’s eyes catch his brother and best friend, asleep soundly in the bed beside him. That won’t be him for the rest of the night.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, now all three of them were awake, they were looking for their next case. Dean was sat with the open laptop and coffee, Emma sat curled on the bed, listening intently, while Sam sat paying more attention to the pad on his lap and his drawing of a tree.

“All right. I’ve been cruising some websites. I think I’ve found a few candidates for our next gig,” Dean said, not looking up from the laptop. “A fishing trawler found of the coast of Cali, it’s crew vanished. And we’ve got some cattle mutilations in West Texas.” Dean finally looked up to see only Emma was paying any attention to him.

“Hey!” Dean said, causing his brother to look up to find both Dean and Emma staring at him.

“Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?” Dean said.

“No. I’m listening. Keep going,” Sam said, although his attention went back to the pad.

“And here,” Dean said, referring back to the laptop. “A Sacramento men shot himself in the head. Three times.” Dean held up three fingers, again seeing that Sam was not paying much attention to him.

“Any of these things blowing up your skirt, pal?” he said. Sam said nothing, just continued staring at the pad on his lap and the picture.

“Wait, I’ve seen this,” Sam said suddenly.

“Seen what?” Dean asked as Sam jumped up and began searching through his bag.

“What are you doing?” Emma asked as Sam finally pulled out his dads journal, flicking through the pages to the front and taking out a photo. A photo of the three of them, in front of the Lawrence house, with John and Mary. The same photo that was lying in a blue box in the basement of their old house. And in the picture was the same tree Sam had been drawing all morning.

“I know where we have to go next,” Sam told the other two, looking up at them.

“Where?” Emma asked.

“Back home. Back to Kansas,” he told them. Dean laughed lightly while all Emma could do was stare at him like he was nuts.

“Ok, random,” Dean said. “Where did that come from?”

“All right, this photo was taking in front of our old house right? The house where mom died?” Sam said, handing the photo to Dean while Emma tried to look across his shoulder from where she was sitting.

“Yeah,” Dean said.

“And it didn’t burn down, right. I mean, not completely. They rebuilt it, right?”

“I guess so, yeah. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ok, look,” Sam said, taking a seat at the table which put him between Dean and Emma. “This is gonna sound crazy, but the people who live in our old house… I think they might be in danger.”

“Why would you think that?” Dean asked.

“Errr… just, erm…. Look just….” Sam stuttered out, getting to his feet and walking across the room. “You gotta trust me on this, ok?”

Following Sam’s movements, both Dean and Emma walked across the room, Dean getting up from his chair and Emma swinging out from the bed covers, still barely dressed and not all that bothered right now as she stood beside Dean, in front of Sam.

“Ok, whoa, whoa. Trust you?” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, packing his things together.

“Come on, that’s weak. You gotta give us a little bit more than that.”

“I can’t really explain it is all.”

“Well, tough,” Dean said. “I’m not going anywhere until you do.” Sam stopped packing but said nothing, simply sighed, looking up at the pair before him. Dean just shook his head slightly, urging Sam to speak again.

“I have these nightmares,” Sam said, pretty much stating the obvious.

“I’ve noticed,” Emma said.

“And sometimes they come true,” Sam continued, now telling them the not so obvious.

“Come again?” Emma said after a small pause.

“Look, I dreamt about Jessica’s death for days before it happened.”

“Sam, people have weird dreams,” Emma said as her and Dean sat side by side on a bed in front of Sam. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

“No,” Sam said adamantly. “I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire. Everything. And I didn’t do anything about it because I didn’t believe it. And now I’m dreaming about that tree, about our house, and about some woman inside screaming for help. I mean, that’s where it all started, man. This has to mean something, right?”

“I don’t know,” Dean said.

“What do you mean, you don’t know, Dean?” Sam said, sitting on the bed infront of Dean and Emma. “This… this woman might be in danger. I mean, this might even be the thing that killed mom and Jessica.”

“All right. Just slow down, would ya?” Dean said, almost jumping off the bed and turning his back on Sam and Emma, giving him a few minutes to think about what he was gonna say next. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the pair behind him, continuing.

“I mean, first you tell me that you’ve got the Shining. And then you tell me that I’ve gotta go back home. Especially when….” Dean trailed off. After all this time of throwing up walls around his emotions to stay strong, they were about to be completely destroyed with merely the mention of his home town.

“When what?” Sam said.

“When I swore to myself I would never go back there,” Dean finished, again turning away from Sam and Emma so they couldn’t see the tears glistening in the back of his eyes, threatening to leak out. But Emma didn’t need to see tears in his eyes to know just how he was feeling. They were, more than likely, the same thoughts that were running through her mind at the thought of going back to a town that held more bad memories than good for her.

Standing up behind him, Emma wrapped her arms round Dean’s waist, hugging close to him.

“Look, Dean, you know I am the last person that wants to go back to that place either. But we have to check this out. Just to make sure.”

At her words, Dean turned slightly to face Emma, staring directly into her eyes. And it was then that her saw her eyes shining, her own tears threatening to fall. He knew that she hated the idea of going back to that town just as much as he did. Just like him, there were things in her life she’d rather not remember, and the worst of them happened back in Lawrence, Kansas.

“I know we do,” he said softly to her, knowing she was right, and that this had to be done, whether any of them actually wanted to or not.

@~~>~~~

With everything packed into the Impala, the trio now pulled up outside their old house, none of them sure whether they wanted to get out the car or not just quite yet. They just sat there, all staring out at a place they never thought they would have to come back to again.

“You gonna be all right, babe?” Emma asked Dean, leaning forward against the back of Dean’s chair.

“Let me get back to you on that,” he answered honestly as the three of them got out of the car. Sam and Dean starting walking up to the house, ready to get this over with. Emma, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure any more. While the boys walked forward, she stayed put, leaning against the car and looking out at the houses along the street. More specifically, the house a few doors down from the one Sam and Dean were approaching. One that was more familiar to her childhood.

Her eyes glued to that house, Emma found it almost impossible to tear her gaze away, even as everything about her past she had tried to forget came flooding back. Memories about the last night she had ever stepped foot inside that house. Unfortunately, Emma still remembered everything about that night, including the ear-splitting scream of a seven year old girl. Her own scream.

Finally noticing that Emma wasn’t actually walking at the side, Sam and Dean turned to where she was still stood by the car. Motioning for Sam to stay where he was, Dean walked over to his girlfriend, her attention not even moving to him when he stopped in front of her.

“Em?” he said softly, causing her to finally look at him. “Never mind me. Are you gonna be all right?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, swallowing and smiling falsely. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

With a reassuring smile of his own, Dean slipped his arm round Emma’s waist, giving her a comforting squeeze as he walked her towards the house. Sam was already at the door and he knocked once they had joined him. They waited a few moments and there knock was soon answered by a young women who looked to be in her mid thirties. The minute he saw her, all Sam could do was stare, seeing his ‘dream woman’ all over again in daylight.

“Yes?” she said in answer to the three people now stood on her doorstep.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am. We’re with the federal….” Dean began, his usual lies coming naturally to his lips as he began introducing them.

“I’m Sam Winchester,” Sam cut in before Dean could continue his lie. “And this is my brother, Dean, and his girlfriend, Emma. We used to live here. You know, we were just driving by and we were wondering if we could come see the old place.”

“Winchester,” Jenny said, recognising the name. “Yeah, that’s so funny. You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night.”

“You did?” Dean asked.

“You must be the plus one?” Jenny said, looking over at Emma. Emma just smiled as Jenny took a step back.

“Ok. Come on in,” she said, walking inside with Sam, Dean and Emma close behind. It was Emma’s turn to be the comforting on this time, taking hold of Dean’s hand and squeezing slightly as his emotion filled eyes darted round every corner of his old house. Those eyes fell on her and they both smiled as the group came to a stop in the kitchen. A small voice echoing ‘juice, juice’ came from the play pen in the corner where Jenny’s young son was bouncing up and down excitedly.

“That’s Richie. He’s kind of a juice junkie,” Jenny said, grabbing his juice bottle from the fridge and handing it to her son. “But, hey, at least he won’t get scurvy.” Moving back into the main kitchen, Jenny stood behind a young girl sat drawing at the kitchen table, looking up at Sam, Dean and Emma stood in front of her.

“Sari, this is Sam and Dean. They used to live here.”

“Hi,” Sari said back, smiling at the three.

“Hey, Sari,” Emma said while Dean smiled and waved at her.

“So you just moved in?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. From Wichita,” Jenny answered.

“You got family here, or…?”

“No, I just… erm… needed a fresh start, that’s all. So new town, new job. I mean, as soon as I find one. New house.” Jenny smiled falsely, keeping her body and hands busy by taking Sari’s plate to the sink, her back to her three new house guests.

“So how you liking it so far?” Sam asked.

“Well,” Jenny said, turning back to face Sam, Dean and Emma. “All due respect to your childhood home. I mean, I’m sure you have lots of happy memories here. But this place has its issues.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just getting old. Like the wiring, you know? We’ve got flickering lights almost hourly.”

“That’s too bad,” Dean said, putting on a smile as both old memories and new fears of what was inside this house came to his mind. “What else?”

“Erm, sink’s backed up. There’s rats in the basement. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to complain.”

“No,” Dean said, still determined to get more information out of her. “Have you seen the rats or have you just heard scratching?”

“It’s just the scratching, actually.”

“Mom?” Sari said, making herself heard as Sam, Dean and Emma exchanged a look. “Ask then if it was here when they lived here.”

“What, Sari?” Emma asked, turning her attention to the young girl at the kitchen table.

“The thing in my closet,” Sari said.

“Oh, no, baby. There was nothing in their closets. Right?” Jenny said, turning up to Sam, Dean and Emma, her eyes telling them to answer correctly.

“Right,” Sam said, catching on. “No, no, of course not.”

“She had a nightmare the other night,” Jenny told them.

“I wasn’t dreaming,” Sari said. “It came into my bedroom, and it was on fire.”

@~~>~~~

With all the information they needed, or thought they could handle right now, Sam, Dean and Emma left, heading back to the Impala, talking only when Jenny was out of earshot.

“You hear that?” Sam pretty much screamed the minute Jenny shut the door behind them. “A figure on fire.”

“And that woman Jenny?” Emma said. “That was the woman in your dreams?”

“Yeah. And you hear what she was talking about? Scratching, flickering lights. Both signs of a malevolent spirit.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just freaked out that you weirdo visions are coming true,” Emma said, trying to keep her voice calm as possible.

“Well forget about that for a minute,” Sam said. “The thing in the house, do you think it’s the thing that killed mom and Jessica?”

“I don’t know,” Dan said, definitely failing to keep his voice calm.

“Well, I mean has it come back or has it been there the whole time?”

“Or maybe it’s something else entirely, Sam, we don’t know yet,” Dean said, not one to jump to conclusions or seemingly get Sam’s hopes up too soon.

“Well, those people are in danger, Dean. We have to get them out of that house.”

“And we will.”

“No, I mean now.”

“And how you gonna do that, huh?” Emma butt in. “You got a story that she’s gonna believe?”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Sam said. The other two breathed deeply, ushering Sam inside the car, needing a different location then in the middle of the street outside their old house to start yelling about this.

@~~>~~~

Their ‘neutral’ position was the gas station. While Dean filled the car, Sam leant against the side of the car and Emma stood between them, knowing she would have to be the level-headed one in this case. The boys were too close to the situation.

“We just gotta chill out, that’s all,” Emma said, trying to put the brother’s mind back where they needed to be if they were gonna finish this case. “You know, if this was any other kind of job, what would we do?” Sam breathed deeply, moving round to sit against the back of the car, Emma sitting beside him.

“We’d try to figure out what we were dealing with,” Sam said, trying his best to put out of his mind their history behind this case. “We’d dig into the history of the house.”

“Exactly,” Emma said. “Except this time we already know what happened.”

“Yeah, but how much do we know? I mean, how much do you actually remember?” Sam asked Dean.

“About that night, you mean?” Dean said.

“Yeah.”

“Not much. I remember the fire. The heat. Then I carried you out the front door.”

“You did?” Sam said, looking up at his big brother.

“Yeah,” Dean said, looking down at the way Sam was looking at him. “Why, you never knew that?”

“No,” Sam said, suddenly realising some of the reasons why Dean was the way he was with him.

“And err, well, you know dads story as well as I do. Mom was….” Dean stammered slightly, not wanting to say this but knowing he had to if they were really gonna find out the truth about this case. “Was on the ceiling. And whatever put her there was long gone by the time dad found her.”

“And he never had a theory about what did it?” Sam asked.

“If he did, he kept it to himself,” Dean said, sitting on the car beside Sam and Emma. “God knows we asked him enough times.”

“Ok,” Emma said, her tone taking an almost business like approach. She didn’t want to stamp on the boys feelings, but she knew if they were gonna get through this, they had to be professional. They had to see past their emotions.

Dean was right sometimes about their jobs. You couldn’t bring it home with you. Lord knows she hated being back in this town just as much as the boys, but the only thing keeping her going in this case was the fact that the sooner they killed whatever this was, the sooner they could be gone and never come back.

“So if we’re gonna figure out what’s going on now, we have to figure out what happened back then, and see if it’s the same thing.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Talk to dad’s friends, neighbours. People who were there at the time.”

“Does this feel like just another job to you?” Sam said, referring back to Emma’s opening statement. Dean didn’t say anything. He just stared at his brother and girlfriend, knowing they already had the answer.

“I’ll be right back. I gotta go to the bathroom,” Dean said, sliding off the car and walking away. Once he was gone, Sam turned to Emma.

“You were there that night, right?” He asked her. “Do you remember anything?”

“No more than what Dean does,” Emma answered. “I just remember the looks on my parent’s faces when they came back. And after what your dad told them, truth or not.”

“Yeah. You err... you came round a lot less after that,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Emma said with a small smile. “Wonder what my folks would say if they could see me now?” The smile soon left as Emma ran a hand through her hair, trying to hold back her tears. Sam watched her and gently put a comforting hand against his best friends shoulder.

“Emma, are you….” he began.

“I’m fine Sam,” she interrupted, looking up at him and forcing a smile. “I think I’m gonna take your brothers advice and use the bathroom before we leave.”

Emma walked off, following the direction Dean had gone in. But Dean wasn’t in the bathroom. He was stood at the side of the building, his cell phone to his ear. But all he got from the number was a voicemail message.

“This is John Winchester,” his father’s voice echoed over the phone on the mechanical machine. “If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 866-907-3235.”

“Dad,” Dean said on the voicemail messages. “I know I’ve left you messages before. I don’t even know if you get them. But I’m with Sam, and we’re in Lawrence, and there’s something in our old house. I don’t know if it’s the thing that killed mom or not, but.…”

Emma stood at the edge of the building, watching as her always strong boyfriend fought back tears as he continued the message.

“I don’t know what to do,” Dean admitted into the phone. “So whatever you’re doing, if you could get here. Please. I need your help, dad.”

Emma waited while Dean put the phone down, stood still staring down. She slowly walked up to him, gently touching his shoulder. He turned at her touch, automatically on guard.

“Hey. It’s just me,” Emma said, backing up slightly and watching Dean relax when he saw it was her.

“You ok?” she asked, letting him answer until she saw the look in his eyes. “And don’t lie to me, because I know you’re really not.”

“It’s just….” Dean began, opting for the honest approach with her. “Being back here, I don’t know where I am anymore.”

“Trust me when I say I know what you mean,” Emma said, smiling slightly to try and keep the mood more on Dean’s normal level of conversation with her.

“I just don’t know what to do, Emma,” Dean admitted to her. “I’m lost for the first time in my life.”

Seeing the emotion behind his eyes and hearing it in his voice, Emma leaned up and wrapped her arms round Dean hugging him tightly and feeling his arms wrap themselves round her.

“You don’t have to be brave all the time, Dean,” Emma said softly into his ear. “Not with me.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Dean said, resting his head against Emma’s shoulder. Emma smiled softly against Dean’s shoulder, believing the truth and emotion in his voice for the first time in their relationship.

“I know the feeling,” Emma said, pulling slightly away from his body and kissing him softly. “Let’s never find out, ok?”

@~~>~~~

Back at her house, Jenny was going about getting all the problems fixed. She stepped into her kitchen, talking to a plumber who was walking behind her.

“No, sir,” Jenny said to the plumber. “Nothing weird down there, I promise. Sink just backed up on it’s own.”

“Well I’ll take a look,” he told her.

“Thanks. Oh, ok. I’ll get out of your way,” Jenny said, leaving the man to do his job.

Getting to work, the plumber knelt in front of the sink, opening the cupboards and looking underneath. His attention was momentarily pushed away from the job at hand when a toy organ monkey on the counter jumped into action, clapping it’s symbol filled hands together. With a smile, the plumber just ignored it, turning back to his work. Removing a pipe from the system, he unplugs the garbage disposal, the little monkey stopping at the same time. Standing straight, he flicked the switch on the garbage disposal to check it was off before rolling up his sleeve and reaching down the drain to try and find the source of the block. Digging deeper, he pulled his hand out at a slight clang of metal.

Thinking nothing of it, he delved his hand back inside the pipe, his job not done. This time, there wasn’t just a simply clang of metal, but a deep whirring as the garbage disposal chugged into life.

With a gut wrenching scream, the plumber tried with all his might to pull his tattered arm from the sink, his blood gushing out through the pipes into a bucket below. His screams echoing round the kitchen, the monkey again sprang into life, his clapping and laughing seemingly mocking the now disabled plumber.

@~~>~~~

Trying to find out more about the house disaster 22 years ago, Sam, Dean and Emma were in Guenther’s repair shop, speaking with Mr Guenther, an old friend of their father’s.

“So you and John Winchester, you used to own this garage together?” Dean asked as they followed Mr Guenther into the main area of his workshop.

“Yeah, we used to,” he answered. “A long time ago. Matter of fact, it must be 20 years since John disappeared. So why are the cops interested all of a sudden?”

“We’re reopening some of our unsolved case, and the Winchester disappearance is one of them,” Emma said, some of that statement true, only they weren’t cops.

“Well, what do you wanna know about John?”

“Whatever you remember,” Dean said. “You know, whatever sticks out in your mind.”

“Well, he was a stubborn bastard, I remember that,” Mr Guenther told them. “And whatever the game, he hated to lose, you know. It was that whole Marine thing. But he sure loved Mary. And he doted on those kids. Even that young girl. Took her in like she was his own after what happened to her parents.”

At that statement, Sam and Dean glanced at Emma stood between them. The young girl all grown up, still greatly attached to the family that had took her in when she had had no one else.

“But that was before the fire?” Emma said, trying her best not to shrink beneath the boys stares.

“That’s right,” he answered.

“He ever talk about that night?” Sam asked.

“No. Not at first. I think he was in shock.”

“Right,” Sam said. “But eventually? What did he say about it?”

“He wasn’t thinking straight. He said… he said something caused that fire and killed Mary.”

“He ever say what did it?” Dean asked.

“Nothing did it. It was an accident. An electrical short in the ceiling or walls or something. I begged him to get some help, but….”

“But what?” Dean said.

“He just got worse and worse.”

“How?”

“Oh, he started reading these strange old books. He started going to see this palm-reader in town.”

“Palm-reader? Do you have a name?” Emma asked.

“No,” Mr Guenther said, and the tone to his voice told the trio they weren’t gonna get any more information out of him that they really needed.

@~~>~~~

Trying to find who this palm reader could be on their own, Sam, Dean and Emma had parked up beside a phone booth, Sam looking through the telephone book while Dean and Emma stayed by the car.

“All right,” Sam said, flicking through the pages. “So there are a few psychics and palm-readers in town. There’s someone named El Divino. There’s the mysterious Mr. Fortensky.” Sam turned to Dean and Emma, a strange smile on his face at the name, wondering just what kind of psychic this guy was. “Missouri Mosley. Some dude named….”

“Wait, wait,” Dean said, standing straighter. “Missouri Mosley?”

“What?” Sam asked.

“That’s a psychic?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

“Dad’s journal,” Dean said, moving to the back of the car and leaning over where Emma was sitting to take the journal out of their bag. “Come here. Look at this.” Sam moved over to them as Emma stood up, Dean opening the journal.

“First page, first sentence. Read that,” He said, showing the page to Sam and Emma.

“ ‘I went to Missouri and I learnt the truth’,” Sam read from the book, looking up and knowing all three were now on the same wave length.

“I always thought he meant the state,” Dean said.

@~~>~~~

Sam, Dean and Emma sat in the waiting room section of Missouri the psychic’s home, nothing much to do but flick through the old magazines on the table while they waited. Dean threw his magazine down on the table just as Missouri walked out of her room, leading her last customer out of the door.

“All right, then. Don’t you worry about a thing,” Missouri told the man. “Your wife is crazy about you.”

“Well, thank you,” the man said as he left, Missouri closing the door behind him.

“Poor bastard,” she said towards Sam, Dean and Emma once he had gone. “His woman is cold banging the gardener.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Dean asked.

“People don’t come here for the truth. They come for good news,” Missouri said, walking back into her room and turning when the trio didn’t appear to be following her. “Well, Sam, Dean and Emma, come on already. I ain’t got all day.”

Sam, Dean and Emma exchanged a look as they got up, following Missouri and stopping in her main room.

“Well, let me look at you,” she said, turning to the three and stopping first in front of Emma.

“Well, you always were a pretty young thing,” Missouri told Emma, to which she smiled politely as the woman moved on to the boys either side of her.

“You boys grew up handsome,” she told them, then turning her attention solely on Dean. “And you were one goofy-looking kid too.” Missouri laughed slightly, Emma too holding back a small smile at the look on the oh-so-vain Dean’s face.

“Sam,” she said softly, turning to him and taking hold of his hand. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry about your girlfriend. And your father. He’s missing?”

“How did you know all that?” Sam asked, the shocked looked on his face matching Dean and Emma’s.

“Well, you were just thinking it, just know,” Missouri answered simply.

“Where is he? Is he ok?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know? You’re supposed to be a psychic, right?”

“Boy, you see me sawing some bony tramp in half?” Missouri said, clearly annoyed that Dean had questioned her abilities. “You think I’m a magician? I may be able to read thoughts and sense energies in a room but I can’t just pull facts out of thin air. Sit. Please.”

Sam, Dean and Emma did that, sitting on a couch facing Missouri, wide smiles spread across both Sam and Emma’s face while Emma tried to hold back laughter. The second the three sat down, Missouri turned her attention to Dean.

“Boy, you put your foot on my coffee table, I’m gonna whack you with a spoon,” Missouri said, clearly reading his mind as he was about to do what Sam and Emma knew without a doubt he probably would have done.

“I didn’t do anything,” Dean said in defence.

“Well you were thinking about it,” Missouri said.

“Ok,” Sam said, wanting to bring the conversation back to the real reason they were here. “So our dad, when did you first meet him?”

“He came for a reading,” Missouri said. “A few days after the fire. I just told him what was really out there in the dark. I guess you could say I drew back the curtains for him.”

“What about the fire?” Dean asked. “Do you know about what killed our mom?”

“A little. Your daddy took me to your house. He was hoping I could sense the echoes, the fingerprints of this thing.”

“And could you?” Sam asked.

“I don’t….” Missouri stammered slightly.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. Oh, but it was evil,” Missouri said, telling the trio probably what they had already guessed.

@~~>~~~

At the house in question, Jenny walked into her kitchen, talking on the phone while he Richie continued to jump up and down in his playpen, again repeating the word juice.

“Look, I feel just awful about the poor mans hand,” Jenny said into the phone. “Wait, but how can I be held liable? Yeah, but I can’t afford a lawyer.” Over the number of noise in the house, Jenny clearly heard the sound of scratching coming from the basement again.

“Ok, listen. You just gotta let me call you back,” Jenny said before hanging up the phone and turning to her son. “Richie, mommy’s gonna be right back, ok?”

“Ok,” Richie replied, watching his mum leave the kitchen.

@~~>~~~

In her home, Missouri was stood and was pacing the floor after Sam, Dean and Emma had told them what they had already found about their old house.

“So, you think something’s back in that house?” Missouri said.

“Definitely,” Sam answered.

“I don’t understand,” Missouri said, seemingly talking more to herself than the other three in the room.

“What?” Sam asked.

“I haven’t been back inside but I’ve been keeping an eye on the place, and it’s been quiet. No sudden deaths, no freak accidents. Why is it acting up now?”

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “But dad going missing and Jessica dying and now this house all happening at once, it just feels like something’s starting.”

“That’s a comforting thought,” Emma said, the looks on the faces in the rest of the room letting her know they were all thinking something along the same lines.

@~~>~~~

At the house, Richie is still sat in his playpen, waiting for his mum to come back. Without any movement from the small child, the screws loosen on the pen, the front dropping forward as the fridge door opened.

“Juice,” Richie said, walking up to the fridge to find it himself. Seeing the bottle, he crawled into the fridge to retrieve it. But not quick enough as the fridge door slammed shut behind him, the child lock slipping into place. It was a few seconds before Jenny came back into the kitchen.

“Oh, baby, either we have rats or mommy is going crazy,” Jenny said, turning to the playpen and finding it empty.

“Richie? Richie!” Jenny screamed, frantically searching round the kitchen for her son. “Baby, where are you?”

Still searching, Jenny to see milk dripping from the fridge. Knowing there was no chance she would have knocked it over without noticing, Jenny slipped the child lock out of place and opened the fridge door. Inside, she found the cause of the spilt milk was her son, who was sitting inside with his juice cup.

“Mama,” he said softly, his voice ebbing slightly against the cold.

“Oh, my God,” Jenny said, pulling him out of the fridge and sweeping him into her arms. Crying softly, she hugged her son against her body when there was a knock on the door. With Richie still in her arms, Jenny opened the door to find Sam, Dean, Emma and Missouri on the other side.

“Sam, Dean, Emma. What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice still shaky from shock.

“Hey, Jenny,” Sam said softly. “This is our friend, Missouri.”

“If it’s not too much trouble we were hoping to show her the old house,” Dean said. “You know, for old time’s sake.”

“You know what? This isn’t a good time. I’m kinda busy,” Jenny said, beginning to make her way back into the house.

“Listen, Jenny, its important….” Dean began, only to be stopped by a hard smack across the back of the head, this one coming from Missouri, not his girlfriend. “Ow,” Dean cried, ducking out of her reach.

“Give the poor girl a break. Can’t you see she’s upset?” Missouri said before turning her attention back to Jenny at the door. “Forgive this boy. He means well. He’s just not the sharpest tool in the shed. But hear me out.”

“About what?” Jenny asked.

“About this house.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about. You think there’s something in this house. Something that wants to hurt your family. Am I mistaken?”

“Who are you?” Jenny asked, Missouri’s abilities beginning to scare her.

“We’re people who can help. Who can stop this thing,” Missouri reassured her gently. “But you’re gonna have to trust us just a little.”

@~~>~~~

Jenny eventually let the group into her house, and they began the search in Sari’s bedroom, where this had all began.

“If there’s a dark energy around here, this room should be the centre of it,” Missouri informed the three who filed into the room behind her.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“This used to be your nursery, Sam. This is where it all happened.” Missouri’s answered gave the reaction of the two boys looking up towards the ceiling, knowing what had happened in this very room 22 years earlier. While Missouri wandered round the room, touching certain items, Dean pulled out his EMF meter, switching it on and catching Missouri’s attention.

“That an EMF?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Dean answered.

“Amateur,” Missouri shot off, earning a glare from Dean as she went back to touching random items. The EMF meter in Dean’s hand began beeping almost frantically, grabbing Sam and Emma’s attention even as Dean did.

“I don’t know if you boys should be disappointed or relieved but this ain’t the thing that took your mom,” Missouri said to the trio, still walking round the room.

“Are you sure?” Sam asked, to which Missouri simply nodded. “How do you know?”

“It isn’t the same energy I felt last time I was here. It’s something different.”

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“Not it. Them,” Missouri said, opening the closet and walking inside. “There’s more than one spirit in this place.”

“What are they doing here?” Emma asked.

“There here because of what happened to your family,” Missouri said, walking back to Sam, Dean and Emma and speaking as if this was the most obvious thing. “You see, all those years ago, real evil came to you. It walked this house. That kind of evil leaves wounds. And sometimes wounds get infected.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam said.

“This place is a magnet for paranormal energy,” Missouri continued. “It’s attracted a poltergeist. A nasty one. And it won’t rest until Jenny and her babies are dead.”

“You said there was more than one spirit,” Sam said.

“There is,” Missouri said, turning back to the closet. “I just can’t quite make out the second one.”

“Well, one things for damn sure,” Dean said, taking a step further into the room. “Nobody’s dying in this house ever again. So whatever is here how do we stop it?”

@~~>~~~

Showing Dean and the other two just how they were going to stop these spirits, the group were now back at Missouri’s house. Sam and Missouri were walking round the room while Dean and Emma were sat at the table, Dean wrapping up bundles of herbs.

“So, what is all this stuff anyway?” Dean asked.

“Angelica Root, Van Van oil, crossroad dirt,” Missouri answered. “A few other odds and ends.”

“Yeah, what are we supposed to do with it?”

“We’re gonna put them inside the walls in the north, south, east, west corners on each floor of the house,” Missouri answered him as she took the chair opposite Dean and Emma.

“We’re gonna be punching holes in the drywall, Jenny’s gonna love that,” Emma said.

“She’ll live,” Missouri said with a small smile.

“And this will destroy the spirits?” Sam asked.

“It should,” Missouri answered. “It should purify the house completely. We’ll each take a floor.”

While Sam and Missouri talked, Dean looked at the herbs that were in his hands, tentively licking the mixture from his fingers. He pulled a face, wiping his fingers on his shirt, and thinking no one had seen. But Emma had, and she elbowed him in the side, giving him a look that told him just how stupid his ‘taste-the-strange-herbs’ idea had been.

“But we work fast,” Missouri continued. “Once the spirits realise what we’re up to things are gonna get bad.”

Finished speaking, Missouri looked up to see Dean and Emma silently and playfully arguing over the herbs Dean was rolling into bundles.

“Emma, sweetie,” she said with a smile. “You wanna give me a hand in the kitchen.” Emma looked back over at Dean once before following Missouri into the kitchen. Missouri closed the door behind her, turning to her with a friendly smile.

“Darling,” Missouri said gently, taking hold of Emma’s hands. “I know how hard it is for you being back here after all this time.”

“Yeah, but the boys….” Emma began, not at all sure she wanted to bring everything that had been running through her mind since she had gotten into town to the surface.

“The boys nothing,” Missouri cut her off. “I’m more concerned with what you’re going through.” Emma simply smiled somewhat sadly, knowing there was no way she was getting out of this with Missouri.

“Sit down,” Missouri said politely, to which Emma began to make her way further into the kitchen. “And not on the counter,” Missouri finished, clearly reading Emma’s mind. Emma smiled again and this time sat at the table, Missouri taking the seat opposite her.

“Your parents?” Missouri asked, starting the conversation Emma had been dreading she would begin. “Did you ever find out what happened to them?”

“No,” Emma answered simply, shaking her head.

“Did you look?” Missouri asked.

“Not properly.”

“Yet that was why you went with the boys and their father. To find what killed your parents,” Missouri said, showing just how much she knew about this girl.

“Yeah. But I guess somewhere along the way, it faded into the background somewhat.”

“I know you remember a lot from that night.”

“A lot of it I don’t want to remember,” Emma said, nodding slightly as tears began to form in her eyes. “Just not the important thing. Like who, or should I say what, killed them.”

“After all you’ve been through, what could make a girl like you change her heart like that?” Missouri said. Emma didn’t answer. She just looked up Missouri, the tears still shining behind her eyes, knowing this woman would know the truth even if Emma didn’t say. “Dean Winchester,” Missouri answered for her. All Emma could do was laugh slightly, telling Missouri she was right.

“You two are lucky to have each other, girl. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not even him,” Missouri told Emma as she stood up, turning towards the door. “And you will get your answers someday. Just be patient.”

Missouri left, leaving Emma alone in the kitchen, her eyes still shining with tears she was trying to hold back at the memories that had been brought forward.

Since Emma had come back to Lawrence, she had tried her best to block out all of the reasons why she hated this town and everything that had happened here. She had told herself she was her to help the boys. That this was their case. But no matter what, everywhere she turned in this place, those memories were forced out.

Sam and Dean weren’t the only ones who had lost something in this town. So had Emma. Her belief in the supernatural had not only grown from her experience in the Winchester house, but because of what she had seen in her own house. Events that were the reason she knew she depended so much on the brothers to be there for her, even if she told herself at times she was here to help them.

It was getting harder for Emma to hold back her tears as memories of that one night flooded back into her mind. The night that her originally family had been taken from her, and the Winchesters had taken her in. she had been so young when it had happened. Too young to see her parents like that. Too young to find their bodies the way she had.

Emma didn’t know how long she sat there, her head bowed and trying to hold back the steadily rising tears behind her eyes, but it was long enough for Dean to come looking for her.

“Hey,” Dean said quietly, causing Emma to turn to him.

“Hey,” she said back, standing and wiping a stray tear from her eyes.

“Everything ok?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. It’s just weird being back here again,” Emma half lied.

“I know what you mean,” Dean said, stepping closer to Emma. He held her gently round the waist, her arms draping across his shoulders and her head resting against his chest. “Emma,” he whispered softly, causing his girlfriend to look up at him so he could clearly see the tears hiding behind her eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“This is me,” he said. “You can cry, and I’m not gonna think any less of you.”

Emma just stared up at him, keeping perfect eye contact. She knew Dean was right and that he was one of the only people in the world who she would ever let her guard down around. But that didn’t mean she wanted to.

The first sob rolling through her body, Emma gave in and wrapped her arms round his neck, crying against his shoulder. Dean held her tightly, stroking his hand comfortingly through her hair while her body shuddered against him.

Being back her was tough for all of them, he knew that. But Emma…. Emma, as always, was being too much like himself. She was doing everything she could to push away her emotions. Hide them long enough so maybe they would just disappear. But sometimes, that wasn’t the best thing to do. Even Dean knew that. So just like she had been there for him after his phone call to his dad, he was gonna be there for her when she needed him.

After a minute of gently sobbing, Emma pulled away, resting her forehead against Dean’s.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely.

“For what?” Dean asked.

“Everything. Just… thank you,” Emma said, kissing him sweetly.

“Emma, I know you don’t wanna be here….” Dean began.

“No. It’s helping,” Emma cut in.

“Really?”

“Yeah. But still, let’s get this done so we can get out of here, ok.” Dean just laughed at this and pulled her closer to him, understanding just how she felt.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Missouri stood at Jenny’s doorway, leading Jenny and her kids out of the house for the night.

“Look, I just… I’m not sure I’m comfortable leaving you guys here alone,” Jenny said nervously to Missouri.

“Just take your kids to the movie or something and it will be over by the time you get back. Ok,” Missouri told her. Begrudgingly, Jenny left Missouri, Sam, Dean and Emma alone in her house, turning to leave with her kids while Missouri went back in the house to begin their work.

@~~>~~~

Emma had chosen the upstairs level, walking into the master bedroom with a hammer and a bag of herb mixture in her hand. Looking around her, she chose a spot by the far wall, kneeling on the floor and tapping the wall to find a hollow spot.

What she failed to notice was the plug from a nearby lamp unplugging itself and snaking across the carpet towards her.

@~~>~~~

Downstairs, Sam and Dean had chosen the kitchen as their mark. Sam stood moving different appliances out of the way while Dean tapped with the end of his axe, like Emma looking for a hollow spot.

Finding the spot in the wall, Dean punched a hole, both the brothers failing to notice a kitchen drawer slowly sliding open.

@~~>~~~

On an even lower section of the house, Missouri was looking round the basement for the perfect spot to place her bundle. Finding a gap in the wall, Missouri placed her bundle in side.

There was no slowly creeping wires or silently opening drawers for Missouri to not notice. Instead there was a steady scraping as a chest of drawers flew across the room at her, Missouri turning and screaming just as it pinned her against the wall.

@~~>~~~

In the kitchen, Dean finally noticed that maybe something was wrong. He had just put the herb bundle inside the wall when the sound of soft scraping caught his ears. Turning, he ducked in time, pulling Sam with him, before the wall where their heads had been were now embedded with knives.

The brothers crouching on the floor, Sam, seeing what Dean had first seen, turned the kitchen table over, shielding them. Just in time as seconds later, the inside of the table was also embedded with knives.

@~~>~~~

In the bedroom, Emma had yet to mention anything was wrong. That was until the lamp, who’s plug was still slowly snaking towards her, fell from the table, the smash causing her to turn. As she did, the plug wire sprang into action so to speak, wrapping itself round Emma’s neck and pulling her to the floor.

Trying to pull the tightly wrapped wire from round her neck, Emma reached forward as much as she could, trying to reach for the herb bundle in the wall to get this over with. But she couldn’t. The wire was pulling her back, tightening even more and choking off her air supply.

Evading the torrent of flying knives downstairs, but hearing the crashing upstairs, Sam and Dean rushed into the room.

“Emma!” the brothers cried, rushing to her and pulling and the wire round her neck. But no matter how much they pulled, the wire wouldn’t budge.

Leaving Sam to continue to try and pull the wire from her throat, Dean moved to the wall where she had started out, aggressively kicking in a hole and placing the herb bundle inside.

The minute the final bundle was in the final wall, a blinding blue light shot through the house, cleansing it. Dean ducked and covered his eyes while Sam cowered over Emma, covering her. The minute the light faded, Dean scrambled back over to Emma, Sam moving aside to let him take the wire from her neck. As she breathed heavily, gasping for air, Dean sat her up, hugging her softly and relieved when he felt her arms, even weakly, wrap round him.

@~~>~~~

Their job done, Sam, Dean, Emma and Missouri stood in the mess of a kitchen, the floor covered in food, tables and draws open, and the furniture upturned.

“You sure this is over?” Sam asked, uncertainty in his voice.

“I’m sure,” Missouri answered. “Why? Why do you ask?”

“Never mind. It’s nothing, I guess,” Sam said as they heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, then the hallway light switching on.

“Hello? We’re home,” Jenny called as she walked into the kitchen with Richie and Sari. Her mouth dropped open as she saw the mess. “What happened?”

“Hi,” she said with a nervous smile. “Sorry. We’ll… we’ll pay for all of this.” This comment, however, earned her a glare from Dean, the man who never gives away his money.

“Don’t you worry. Dean’s gonna clean up this mess,” Missouri said, and Dean’s glare now turned on her as she turned to him.

“Well, what are you waiting for, boy? Get the mop,” Missouri said, reading Dean’s mind quickly before he turned away. “And don’t cuss at me.”

Dean gave her a look before turning away, muttering something under his breath that was most certainly cussing. Emma, laughing softly, followed him like the somewhat kindly hearted girlfriend she was.

“And don’t even think about touching that girl,” Missouri’s voice followed them. The sound of a hard smack floating back into the kitchen, followed by Dean’s groan of pains.

@~~>~~~

With the house clean, both of the spirits and the mess, Sam, Dean, Emma and Missouri left Jenny alone in her safe house.

Her children asleep, Jenny sat in bed reading a magazine. Glancing over at the clock beside her with a yawn, she decided to call it a night. Putting down her magazine and turning off the bedside light, Jenny lay down, closing her eyes in sleep.

After a minute, the seemingly peaceful house she was sleeping in became less peaceful. All too suddenly, Jenny bed began shaking violently, Jenny struggling to stay upright as she screamed.

@~~>~~~

Outside, Sam, Dean and Emma were sat in the Impala, keeping a close eye on the house. The three of them had managed to fit themselves into the front of the car, Emma sat partially on Dean’s lap.

“Right, so tell me again, what are we still doing here?” Emma said to Sam, the one who had decided the three of them still needed to be here.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I just…. I still have a bad feeling.”

“Why?” Dean asked. “Missouri did her whole Zelda Rubinstien thing. The house should be clean. This should be over.”

“Yeah,” Sam answered. “Well, probably, but I just wanna make sure, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, problem is, I could be sleeping in a bed right now,” Dean said, slouching back against the chair.

“Same here,” Emma said, leaning against Dean. Both got as comfy as they could, closing their eyes in an attempt at sleep. Sam kept watch on the house, and it was lucky it did. His eyes going to the top window, Sam saw the same scene he had in his dreams. Jenny pounding against the window down at them, screaming for help.

“Emma. Dean!” Sam called, jumping out of the car. Dean and Emma looked up at the window, seeing what Sam had seen. Swinging the door open, Emma jumped off Dean’s lap and out of the car, Dean following quickly after her.

“You two grab the kids, I’ll get Jenny,” Dean cried out as the three ran up to the house. Seeing help was on it’s way, Jenny left the window and window and instead tried pulling her bedroom door open, to no avail.

Inside the house, Sam, Dean and Emma split up. While Dean ran to Jenny’s bedroom, Sam and Emma ran towards the kids rooms.

Running down the hall, Dean came to Jenny’s room, pulling at the door but finding it impossible to open.

“Jenny!” he called through the door.

“I can’t open the door!” Jenny screamed back, the fear clear in her voice.

“Stand back,” Dean shouted through the door. He waited a moment, hoping she had listened and backed up, then kicks the door in, this time successfully opening it.

“Come on,” he called to her, grabbing her hand and trying to drag her from the room.

“No, my kids!” she called back, pulling against Dean.

“Sam and Emma have got your kids. Come on,” Dean said, dragging Jenny from the house while Sam and Emma were running to the kids with.

Sam, with Richie in his arms, ran with Emma towards Sari’s room, following her cries of help.

“Help. Please.”

Turning the corner and running into Sari’s doorway, Sam couldn’t help but pause when he saw the spirit, a clear figure on fire stepping out of the closet. Watching his pause and seeing the look come over his face, Emma ran past him and into the room.

“Come here,” she said, picking her up off the bed. “Don’t look.” Emma ran out of the room with Sari in her arms and Sam following her with Richie. They got to the stairs before Sam suddenly stopped as if sensing something, dropping Richie to the floor. Knowing he was no longer behind her, Emma too stopped, dropping Sari beside her brother.

“Sam?” she said, but he didn’t answer instead simply looked down at Sari.

“Right, Sari, take your brother outside as fast as you can and don’t look back,” he told her. Emma was about to question his decision when Sam was suddenly thrown to his feet, an unseen force dragging him backwards as Sari screamed.

Emma wanted to run after him, pull him back, but she knew she couldn’t. One, she had two young kids beside her, and two, she would end up caught herself by whatever had Sam. The only way she could get Sam out was if she wasn’t worrying about the kids, and if she had Dean.

Grabbing Sari’s hand while Sari took her brother’s hand, Emma ran out of the house to where Dean and Jenny were waiting outside. Sari and Richie ran to their mother while Emma carried on running to Dean.

“Where’s Sam?” Dean asked the minute he had took hold of his girlfriend, knowing she was still safe.

“Inside. Whatever’s in there has him,” she answered, Dean and Emma turning to the house in time to see the door slam itself shut.

Wasting no time at all, Dean and Emma ran back to the Impala, ignoring the street, which was now full of spectators coming out of their houses to view the commotion. Hastily throwing open the trunk, Emma grabbed out a shotgun while Dean grabbed and axe, and the two ran back to the house.

Running to the front door, the two tried to open it, trying to kick it down in intervals and together. Knowing there was no chance that was gonna work, Dean used the axe he had held tight in his hand, hacking through the wooden door.

Inside, over the sound of the axe slamming through the wood of the door, there was the sound of crashes as Sam was thrown from room to room, landing heavily against the kitchen cupboards. Unable to pull himself off the floor, the spirit did it for him as he picked him up, holding his body against the wall. Sam tried with all his strength to pull himself away from the wall, but he found it impossible. Whatever had hold of him wanted to keep him where he was.

“Sam!” he heard Emma’s voice call from the front door. He didn’t have chance to shout back before his attention was distracted by the figure on fire that had now appeared and was steadily walking towards Sam who was incapable to move away.

Finally breaking through the door enough, the pair outside made their way through, searching the house for Sam. Turning to the more professional and gun worthy of the two, Emma threw Dean the ready loaded shotgun, keeping her attention on searching for Sam.

“Sam? Sam,” Dean called out, their search finally ended as they found Sam pinned to the wall in the kitchen. And as with Sam, Dean and Emma’s attention were drawn to the figure on fire as Dean aimed his shotgun it’s way.

“No! Don’t! Don’t!” Sam shouted at him.

“What? Why?” Dean yelled back.

“Because I know who it is. I can see her now,” Sam said. And as he said that, the figure lets it true appearance be known. Mary Winchester.

“Mom?” Dean said softly, lowering his weapon, the expression of shock on his face matching those on Sam and Emma’s.

“Dean,” she said with a smile on his face, stepping up to him. All Dean could do was stare at the ghost of his dead mother, watching her movement s as she turned to Sam.

“Sam. I’m sorry,” she said gently.

“For what?” Sam asked, tears welling in the back of his eyes. But Mary didn’t answer. She turned away. Turning to the last member in the room, Emma.

“Look after my boys,” she told her. Before Emma could say a thing, she had turned away, looking up at the ceiling.

“You get out of my house,” she spoke up to the ceiling. “And let go of my son.”

With a small but sudden explosion, Mary’s body turned to flames again, shooting up to the ceiling and disappearing as the trio watched. The minute the house fell quiet, the hold on Sam fell. He collapsed down from the wall, Emma moving to his side to hold him upright.

“Now it’s over,” Sam announced, him and Emma standing beside Dean, the three still staring ahead at the spot Mary Winchester had vanished from.

@~~>~~~

The job once and for all finally over, things were a little brighter the next morning. Preparing to leave, Dean and Emma stood beside the Impala, flicking through a number of old photo’s of their childhood Jenny had given them.

“Thanks for these,” Dean said to Jenny, who was stood in front of them.

“Don’t thank me. They’re yours,” she said before walking away over to her children.

“I’m kinda glad we came back here,” Emma told Dean once they were alone. Dean just stared at her for a moment, not sure how to take that comment. Seeing the look on his face, Emma just smiled.

“Think about it Dean,” she said. “We don’t talk about our pasts. Not me, not you, not Sammy. But this, coming back here, it’s given us that chance. The chance to see what really brought the three of us here, to where we are now.” Dean, ever the sceptic, raised his eyebrows at her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she told him. “I know I’m going all philosophical on you, but it’s the truth. People aren’t who they are without the trials they go through.”

“But us three, Emma,” he said. “We’ve had a hell of a lot of trials in our lives. Trials that people shouldn’t have to go through.”

“I know,” Emma said, a deep sigh rolling through her body. “Every day I wish that half of the things that had happened to me had never happened. That neither of us had lost our families at such a young age. But I…. I hate to say this Dean, but some good has come out of it.”

“And what might that be?” Dean asked.

“This,” she said simply. “Us. Me and you. The three of us. Everything that we’ve got right now. I know that if I hadn’t of gone through half of the things that I had gone through in my life, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be with you, and I wouldn’t have the relationship with Sam that I do. And considering all the things that have happened in my life, I can’t help but wonder if it’s right to be thankful for all of that.”

“I think you should be,” Dean said, his voice as comforting and reassuring as Emma had ever heard it. “Because I am too. After everything that’s gone wrong in my life, I’m thankful that you and Sam are the one good things that have come out of it.”

“So you get the whole, coming back here may have been a good thing deal then?” Emma said. Again, Dean just stared at her, before a gentle smile spread across his lips.

“I think I know what you mean,” Dean said in reply. With a smile running across her lips, even if it was slightly forced and saddening, she looked down at the pictures Dean was still holding.

“But you know, I am sorry you don’t have anything like this,” he said gently, swinging his arm round her waist. “Childhood pictures.”

“But I do,” Emma replied. She moved aside the picture Dean had in his hand to show the one behind it. This picture was of the three of them, a younger Dean and Emma with their arms hugging an even younger Sam.

“This was my childhood. With you and Sam,” she said, her smile this time real. “And that’s gonna be my future too. You’re stuck with me.”

Emma turned her attention quickly, looking over at Sam who was sat quietly alone on the steps of his old house.

“You two, you’re my family,” she said, turning her attention back to Dean. “You’re my boys. And I ain’t gonna leave you to get yourselves killed without me.” Her smiled widening, Emma draped her arms across Dean’s shoulders, pulling herself closer to him.

“Besides,” she continued with a small laugh. “I’m supposed to look after you, remember.” With a laugh of his own, Dean pulled Emma even closer, leaning down to press his lips against hers. His mouth and mind somewhat otherly occupied, Dean distractedly threw the pictures onto the backseat of the car.

Still sat on the steps of the house, Sam was lost in thought over everything they had been through here, and didn’t notice Missouri slowly make her way out of the house.

“Well, there are no spirits in there anymore,” Missouri said as she sat on the steps beside him. “This time for sure.”

“Not even my mom?” Sam asked.

“No,” Missouri said, her voice comforting.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“Your mom’s spirit and the poltergeists energy, they cancelled each other out. Your mom destroyed herself going after the thing.”

“Why would she do something like that?”

“Well, to protect her boys, of course.” Hearing this, Sam turned away, tears pushing forward from the backs of his eyes. Missouri, seeing this, reaches out to comfortingly touch his shoulder, but stops.

“Sam, I’m sorry,” is all she could say.

“For what?” Sam asks for the second time today.

“You sensed it was here, didn’t you? Even when I couldn’t.”

“What’s happening to me?”

“I know I should have all the answers but… I don’t know.”

“Sam, you ready?” Emma’s voice called out to him. With a soft sigh and a small aimed at Missouri, Sam stood from the steps, heading back to Dean, Emma and his somewhat normal life again.

“Thanks, Sam,” Jenny said as she past by Sam, already having said her goodbyes to Dean and Emma. Sam stood beside the car with Dean and Emma, turning back to Missouri and Jenny before he got inside the car.

“Don’t you guys be strangers,” Missouri told them.

“We won’t,” Dean said.

“See you around,” Missouri finished as Jenny waved to them. With a smile, Sam, Dean and Emma got inside the car, finally driving away from this town as Missouri almost mournfully watched them.

@~~>~~~

Her work with the trio done, Missouri walked into her house later that night, throwing her bag down on the table.

“That boy,” Missouri spoke out loud. “I mean, he has such powerful abilities. Why he couldn’t sense his own father, I have no idea.”

Missouri walked into her living room where, sat on the couch, was John Winchester.

“Mary’s spirit?” John aid solemnly. “Do you really think she saved the boys? And Emma?”

“I do,” Missouri said. John just nodded sadly, looking down at the wedding ring till on his finger.

“John Winchester, I could just slap you,” Missouri said into the silence. “Why don’t you go talk to your children?”

“I want to,” John said. “You have no idea how much I wanna see them. But I can’t. Not yet.”

John looked up at Missouri, all the emotion he felt pouring out through is eyes as he locked them with hers.

“Not until I know the truth.”


	10. Asylum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean and Emma investigate an abandoned sanatorium and discover that when the hospital was open, the patients held a revolt against the cruel and unusual punishments inflicted by the head doctor. While the three search the premises for two lost college students, the tortured spirits cause them to go insane, turning Sam against Dean and Emma.

Roosevelt Asylum in Rockford, Illinois. This town’s version of an urban legend. And one every kid in town I all too eager to explore. And tonight is no different as two cops, officer Gunderson and Kelly, are sent to a disturbance at the asylum.

“Can’t keep kids out of this place,” Gunderson said as he and Kelly got out of their cop car.

“What is it anyway?” Kelly asked.

“I forgot you’re not local,” Gunderson said with a smile. “You don’t know the legend.”

“Legend?”

“Every town’s got its stories, right? Ours is Roosevelt Asylum. They say it’s haunted with the ghosts of the patients. Spend the night, the spirits will drive you insane.”

Flashlights on, the old cop and his newbie partner walked into the asylum, searching for the teenagers who had apparently broken into this place.

“Hello? Police officers! Police officers!” Gunderson called out into the building. At the sound of rolling glass in the distance, the two officers turn to see that the chains that usually keep the main doors closed are cut.

“You telling me these kids brought bolt cutters?” Gunderson said disbelievingly. “Come on, we’ll split up.”

“All right,” Kelly said, the two of them walking through the doors and off in opposite directions. While Gunderson searches round the main rooms which so long ago had held patients, Kelly wandered round the lower area, the boiler room, and a door with a sign reading bio-hazard.  
In the main area, Gunderson hears a noise and walks into a room, finding the three teenagers hiding inside.

“All right. Come on out,” he told them, flashing his flashlight their way.

Unaware that his partner had found the teenager, Kelly continued searching round the basement level. Although the search got a little more complicated when his flashlight began to flicker and went out. It was only when the room was in darkness that a hidden door creaked open behind him.

Back outside, Gunderson stood watch as the kids drove away. When he knew they were gone, he called through on his radio for his partner.

“Kelly, you copy?” he said. But his partner gave no reply. Instead, when Gunderson turned round, Kelly was stood silently behind him.

“Jeez,” Gunderson said, startled. “Where the hell you been?”

“In there,” Kelly replied.

“What was it? See anything?” Gunderson asked. Kelly paused before answering.

“No,” Kelly answered with a small laugh. They left the subject there, the two of them climbing back into the car.

“This is patrol 1-4,” Gunderson spoke into the police radio. “We are clear and returning to station.”

“Roger, patrol 1-4,” a voice crackled over the radio. If Gunderson had turned to look at his partner, he would have caught the vacant look on Kelly’s face as a trickle of blood ran from his nose. Without any flicker of emotion on his face, Kelly wiped it away, looking down at the blood now on his hand.

@~~>~~~

That night, officer Kelly walked into his house, not saying a word as he walked upstairs into his bedroom where his wife was already in bed. With his wife permanently to his wife and his face emotionless, Kelly flung his jacket over the back of a chair.

“Hey,” his wife said in greeting. Kelly just ignored her, standing by the dresser and taking his gun from his holster. “So, what? You’re still not talking to me.”

Kelly continued to ignore his wife, putting his keys beside his gun, his face emotionless and movements almost robot like.

“Walt, I said I was sorry about before,” his wife said. “How many times do I have to say it?”

For a second, there was a pause. But that was before Kelly picked up his gun from the dresser, two consecutive gunshots suddenly heard from outside.

@~~>~~~

In a motel room quite some miles away, Sam, Dean and Emma were still on their search for the boy’s father. Dean was sat at the table, flipping through the journal, while Emma was sat on the bed going through sheets of information that weren’t in the journal. Sam was sat on the bed opposite Emma on his cell phone.

“No, dad was in California last we heard from him,” Sam said into the phone. “We just thought he comes to you for munitions, maybe you seen him in the last few weeks. Just call us if you hear anything. Thanks.”

“Caleb hasn’t heard from him?” Dean asked as Sam hung up.

“Nope,” Sam answered. “Neither has Jefferson or Pastor Jim. What about the journal? Any leads in there?”

“No,” Dean said. “Same as last time I looked. Nothing I can make out. I love the guy, but I swear he writes like friggin’ Yoda.”

“You know, maybe we should call the feds,” Sam suggested. “File a missing persons.”

“We talked about this,” Emma said, looking up from the sheets. “Your dad would be pissed if we put the feds on his tail.”

“I don’t care anymore,” Sam said as Dean cell phone went off, Dean looking through piles of his clothes for it. “After all that happened back in Kansas. I mean, he should have been there, Dean. You said so yourself. You tried to call him and nothing.”

“I know,” Dean said. “Where the hell is my cell phone?”

“You know, he could be dead for all we know,” Sam said, ignoring him.

“Don’t say that. He’s not dead. He’s… he’s….”

“He’s what? He’s hiding? He’s busy?”

“Sam, this is your dad we’re talking about. I’m sure he’s fine,” Emma said as Dean finally found his cell phone, flicking it open to see the sound was a message tone. He opened it and saw it was from an unavailable number and simply read 42, -89. Co-ordinates.

“I don’t believe it,” Dean said with a slight laugh.

“What?” Emma asked as Dean sat on the bed beside her.

“It’s a… a text message,” he stumbled out. “It’s co-ordinates.”

@~~>~~~

After the message on Dean’s phone, Emma was now sat with the laptop open, Dean beside her, while Sam paced the room, still going through this.

“You think dad was texting us?” Sam said for about the fifth time.

“He’s given us co-ordinates before,” Dean gave the reply he had before.

“The man can barely work a toaster, Dean,” Sam said.

“Sam, this is good news,” Dean assured him. “It means he’s ok. Or alive, at least.”

“Well, was there a number on the caller I.D.?”

“No, it said unknown.”

“Ok, well where do the co-ordinates point?” Sam said, turning to Emma.

“That’s the interesting part,” Emma said. “Rockford, Illinois.”

“Ok, and that’s interesting how?” Sam said.

“Well, I checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this,” Emma said, turning the screen do Sam could see. He moved beside her, looking at the screen as Emma magnified a picture of Officer Kelly.

“This cop, Walter Kelly,” Emma went on. “He comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out. And earlier that night, Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum.”

“Ok, I’m not following,” Sam said as Emma began flipping through the journal. “What does this have to do with us?”

“Your dad earmarked the same asylum in the journal. Let’s see,” Emma said, turning to the right page and showing it to Sam and Dean. “Here. Seven unconfirmed sightings. Two deaths. Till last week, at least. I think this is where he wants us to go.”

“This is a job,” Sam said, standing up and pacing angrily with his fingers laced behind his head. “Dad wants us to work a job.”

“Yeah, maybe we’ll meet up with him,” Dean said. “Maybe he’s there.”

“Maybe he’s not,” Sam said. “He could be sending us there by ourselves to hunt this thing.”

“Who cares?” Dean said, standing up as Emma closed the laptop and listened to them. “If he wants us there it’s good enough for me.”

“This doesn’t strike you as weird?” Sam said. “The texting? The co-ordinates?”

“Sam. Dad’s telling us to go somewhere, we’re going,” Dean said, walking off to pack his stuff. Sam and Emma just sat staring after him, knowing that when it came to his father, there was no way in hell either of them were gonna change his mind.

@~~>~~~

Following the co-ordinates and leads they had from the cases at the asylum, Sam, Dean and Emma had turned up at a bar. Inside the bar, Officer Gunderson was sat solemnly at the bar on his own. That was until Dean and Emma approached him.

“You’re Daniel Gunderson, right? You’re a cop?” Dean said.

“Yeah, Gunderson said simply.”

“I’m Nigel Tufnel, this is Kristine Guest,” Dean said, him and Emma sitting opposite Gunderson. “We’re with the Chicago Tribune. Mind if we ask you a couple of questions about your partner?”

“Yeah, I do,” Gunderson said. “I’m just trying to have a beer here.”

“Its ok, it won’t take that long,” Emma said with a sweet smile. “We just wanna hear the story in your words.”

“A week ago my partner was sitting in that chair,” Gunderson said. “Now he’s dead. You gonna ambush me here?”

“Sorry. But we need to know what happened,” Dean said. From the other side of the bar, Sam walked aggressively over to them.

“Hey, buddy. How about leaving the poor guy alone, huh?” Sam said, grabbing Dean roughly from his chair and pushing him into the pool table. “The man’s an officer. Why don’t you show a little respect.”

Dean leaned against the pool table for a minute, staring at Sam, before leaving. Dean gone, Sam turned to Emma, who held her hands up in defence.

“I’m gone,” Emma said, leaving Sam alone with Gunderson.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Gunderson said to Sam.

“Yeah, of course I did. Those kinda guys are serious jerks. Let me buy you a beer, huh?” Sam said, turning to the barman and holding up two fingers. “Two.”

“Thanks,” Gunderson said as Sam took the chair he had just thrown Dean out of.

@~~>~~~

Outside the bar, Dean and Emma were leant against the car, waiting for Sam. Dean was massaging a sore shoulder while Emma just looked really bored.

“I’m bored,” Emma said with a smile. “Why did we have to be the ones to be shoved out the bar?”

“You weren’t shoved,” Dean said. “I was.”

“Awww,” Emma said, turning to Dean with a smile. “Did Sammy hurt you?”

“No,” Dean said, although he continued to massage his shoulder. Smiling, Emma leant into his shoulder and kissed it gently, keeping her eyes focused on his face. Dean turned to her with a smile, spinning her so she was in front of him, stood between his legs, and making her giggle softly.

“You said you were bored, right?” Dean said.

“Right,” Emma said. In reply to this, Dean simply pulled Emma closer and kissed her.

“Helping?” he said as he pulled away, smiling cheekily.

“Definitely,” Emma said, wrapping her arms round Dean’s neck and pulling back to him to kiss him again. Unnoticed by the pair, Sam walked out of the bar behind them, seeing the two clearly too occupied to notice him. Getting their attention, Sam cleared his throat loudly, making the two pull apart and turn to him.

“Hey,” Dean said, him and Emma separating to stand side by side again. “You shoved me kind of hard in there, buddy boy.”

“I had to sell it, didn’t I?” Sam said. “It’s Method acting.”

“Huh?” Dean said, to which Emma repressed a laugh at her clueless her boyfriend sometimes was. Gorgeous and a real sweet guy, but clueless.

“Never mind,” Sam said.

“I’m just glad you didn’t have to turn on me,” Emma said with a smile at Sam. “What’d you find out from Gunderson?”

“So, Walter Kelly was a good cop,” Sam told them. “Head of his class, even-keeled. He had a bright future ahead of him.”

“What about at home?” Dean asked.

“He and his wife had a few fights, like everybody, but it was mostly smooth sailing,” Sam said. “They were even talking about having kids.”

“All right, so either Kelly had some deep seated crazy waiting to bust out, or something else did it to him,” Dean said.

“Right,” Sam said.

“What Gunderson tell you about the asylum?” Emma asked.

“A lot,” Sam said with a smile.

@~~>~~~

Going to the source of the problem, Sam, Dean and Emma jumped the fence into the asylum next morning.

“So apparently, the cops chased the kids here, into the south wing,” Sam said as they walked around the building.

“South wing, huh? Wait a second,” Dean said, flicking through the pages of his fathers journal. “South wing, south wing. 1972. ‘Three kids broke into the south wing. Only one survived’. The way he tells it, one of his friends went nuts and started lighting up the place.”

“So whatever’s going on, south wing seems like the heart of it,” Emma said.

“Yeah, but if kids are spelunking the asylum, why aren’t there a ton more deaths?” Dean said. As if answering that, Sam’s eye fell on the broken chain across the doors.

“Looks like the doors are usually chained,” Sam said. “Could’ve been chained up for years.”

“Yeah, to keep people out,” Dean said.

“Or to keep something in,” Emma added as Sam cautiously walked to the doors, slowly pushing them open. He exchanged a look with Dean and Emma before the three walked together through the corridors, Dean with his EMF meter out.

“Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel,” Dean said to Sam.

“Dude, enough,” Sam said, making Dean and Emma laugh slightly.

“I’m serious,” Dean went on. “You gotta be careful, all right. Ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing you got going.”

“I told you, it’s not ESP,” Sam argued. “I just have strange vibes sometimes. Weird dreams.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean said. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“You getting any reading on the thing or not?” Sam said, keeping the conversation on the topic at hand.

“Nope,” Dean said. “Of course that doesn’t mean nobody’s home.”

“Spirits can appear during certain hours of the day,” Sam said.

“Yeah, the freaks come out at night,” Emma translated into her kinda language.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“Hey Sam, who do you thinks the hotter psychic?” Emma started with a smile. “Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Loved Hewitt, or you?”

With a playful look her way, Sam shoved Emma lightly as her and Dean laughed. Carrying on their personal tour of the building, the trio walked into an old operating room, Dean whistling lowly as he looked round at all the equipment. He flicked the switches on the EMF meter one last time before giving up and putting it away as he still got nothing.

“Man. Electroshock, labotomies. They did some twisted stuff to these people,” Dean said before putting on a Jack Nicholson type accent. “Kind of like my man Jack in Cuckoo’s Nest.”

And all his attempted joke earned him were stares from his brother and girlfriend.

“So, what do you think?” Dean said, giving up the joking. “Ghosts are possessing people?”

“Maybe,” Sam said.

“Or maybe it’s more like, uh… like Amyitville or the Smurl haunting,” Emma suggested.

“Spirits driving them insane,” Dean said. “Kind of like my man Jack in The Shining.”

“Give it up, sweetie,” Emma said, giving him a response this time as they carried on looking round the room.

“Dean?” Sam said, making Dean turn to him. “When are we gonna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Dean asked.

“About the fact that dad’s not here,” Sam said.

“Oh, let’s see. Never,” Dean said.

“I’m being serious, man,” Sam said.

“So am I, Sam,” Dean said. Behind them, Emma just shook her head. She could see the inevitably battle of the brothers coming up, which neither would win, and she didn’t feel like getting involved. She just carried on searching round the room, continuing with the real reason why they were there.

“Look, he sent us here,” Dean continued. “He obviously wants us here. We’ll just have to pick up the search later.”

“It doesn’t matter what he wants,” Sam said.

“See, that attitude right there? That is why I always got the extra cookie.”

“Dad could be in trouble. We should be looking for him. We deserve some answers, Dean. I mean, this is our family we’re talking about.”

“I understand that, Sam. But he’s given us an order.”

“So what, we gotta always follow dad’s orders?”

“Of course we do.”

“You guys done?” Emma said finally, a hint of annoyance in her tone. “Can we get back to the case now?”

Both looking over at rational girl, all Sam and Dean had to see was the look in her eyes and the way she was standing to know she was annoyed enough to cause both of them pain if they didn’t listen to her right now. The three now looking round the room, Emma picked up a metal plague from one of the tables.

“ ‘Sanford Ellicott’,” she read off of it. “You know what we gotta do. We gotta find out more about the south wing. See if something happened here.”

Emma turned to walk out, smacking the plague across Dean’s arm and shoving it into Sam’s chest as she walked past them. Looking down at the sign, the boys read ‘Chief of Staff Sanford Ellicott. M.D.’ Glancing at each other, Sam threw the plague down as he and Dean followed Emma out.

@~~>~~~

Looking up the name Ellicott, the three had found his living relative, psychiatrist Dr James Ellicott. Taking this one, Sam was sat in the waiting room flipping through a magazine when the doctor came out of his office.

“Sam Winchester?” he called into the waiting room, making Sam look up.

“That’s me,” Sam said.

“Come on in,” James said, walking into his office with Sam following behind. The two sat opposite each other, James at his desk and Sam on the couch.

“Thanks again for seeing me last minute,” Sam said, looking round the room at all the certificates on the walls, and pictures on the desk. “Dr. Ellicott? Ellicott, that name. Wasn’t there a… a Dr. Sanford Ellicott? Yeah, he was a… he was a chief psychiatrist somewhere.”

“My father was chief of staff at the old Roosevelt Asylum,” James said “How did you know?”

“Uh, well, I’m sort of a local history buff,” Sam adlibbed. “Hey, wasn’t there a… wasn’t there an incident or something? In the, uh... in the…. In the hospital, I guess. In the south wing, right?”

“We’re on your dollar, Sam. We’re here to talk about you,” James said.

“Oh, ok. Yeah, yeah, sure,” Sam said.

“So,” James began.

“So,” Sam repeated, not sure what to say.

“How’s things?” James asked.

“Uh, things are good, doctor?” Sam said.

“Good. What you been doing?” James asked.

“Uh, same old. Just been on a road trip with my brother and a friend,” Sam said, the tone in his voice quite different between the words ‘brother’ and ‘friend’.

“Was that fun?”

“Loads. Um, you know, we met a lot of… interesting people.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Did a lot of, uh…. A lot of interesting things,” Sam said, wanting to get off this subject. “Uh…. You know, what was it exactly that happened in the south wing? I forget….”

“Look, if you’re a local history buff, then you know all about the Roosevelt riot,” James said.

“The riot? Well, no, I know. I’m just curious,” Sam said.

“Sam, let’s cut the bull, shall we?” James said. “You’re avoiding the subject.”

“What subject?” Sam asked.

“You,” James said simply. “Now, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you all about the Roosevelt riot if you tell me something honest about yourself. Like… this brother you’re road tripping with. How do you feel about him?”

This question, for Sam, was a stumper. One he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer.

@~~>~~~

Outside the doctor’s office, Dean and Emma were waiting somewhat impatiently for Sam to come back out. The pair leaning against the wall, Sam walked passed them as he came out, Dean and Emma following him to the car.

“Dude. You were in there forever,” Dean said. “What the hell were you talking about?”

“Just the hospital, you know,” Sam said.

“And?” Emma said.

“And the south wing?” Sam said. “It’s where they housed the real hard cases. The psychotics, the criminally insane.”

“Sounds cosy,” Dean said.

“Yeah. And one night in ’64, they rioted. Attacked staff, attacked each other.”

“So what, the patients took over the asylum?”

“Apparently.”

“Any deaths?”

“Some patients, some staff. I guess it was pretty gory. Some of the bodies were never even recovered including our chief of staff, Ellicott.”

“What do you mean, never recovered?”

“Cops scoured every inch of the place, but I guess the patients must’ve stuffed the bodies somewhere hidden.”

“That’s grim,” Emma said with a grimace.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “So they transferred all the surviving patients and shut down the hospital for good.”

“All right, so to sum it up,” Emma said. “We’ve got a bunch of violent deaths and a bunch of unrecovered bodies.”

“Which could mean a bunch of angry spirits,” Sam added.

“Good times,” Dean said as the group got into the car. “Let’s check out the hospital tonight.”

@~~>~~~

Later that night, the asylum was broken into again, but not by Sam, Dean and Emma. Instead, the flashlight beam that shone through the hall was held by Gavin, a teenage boy with his girlfriend, Kat.

“Check this out,” Gavin said. “Creepy. Yet terrifying.”

“I thought we were going to a movie,” Kat said.

“This is better,” Gavin said. “It’s like we’re in a movie.”

“I can’t believe you call this a date,” Kat said with a sigh.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. Let’s look around,” Gavin said, walking up a little ahead. Kat, however, didn’t follow, and Gavin turned back to her. “Come on.”

Kat begrudgingly followed, the pair walking down the corridors, Kat sticking close to Gavin. Seemingly hearing something behind them, Gavin jumped round, turning the flashlight down another corridor.

“What’s that?” Gavin said, making Kat jump round and shriek. Gavin couldn’t hold the charade for much longer and started laughing, Kat angrily punching his shoulder when she realised he was messing around. Still laughing, Gavin turned the flashlight in the direction they were walking to see an open door.

“Hey, look. Come on, let’s check it out,” he said, walking towards it.

“I don’t want to,” Kat said, making Gavin turn to her. “Let’s just go.”

“Come on,” Gavin said. Kat didn’t move, just stared at him. “Ok, ok. You can wait here,” he said, walking off again.

“W…. Gavin, no,” Kat said nervously, Gavin turning to her again.

“I’m just gonna be a minute. Nothing’s gonna get you, I promise,” Gavin said, dropping his bag at her feet and walking off. Kat just stood watching him, her arms folded across her chest. This time, the rustling sound that came from behind her was real, Kat looking round scared.

As Gavin walked into the room, the door closed behind him, making him turn quickly. The only light in the room was coming from the flashlight in his hand, which flickered and went out.

“Damn it,” Gavin cursed, bashing the flashlight while he turned to the doorway to see the shadowed figure of a female stood there.

“Hey, sweetie. Couldn’t take it, huh?” Gavin said brightly. She said nothing. Just walked into the room and leaned up to kiss him, Gavin not pushing her away.

“Gavin,” Kat’s voice echoed from outside the room. “Where are you?”

Hearing his girlfriend’s voice, Gavin pulled away from the girl still kissing him. He now saw that the only similarity between her and Kat was the blonde hair, what would have been a pretty face mangled with burns.

@~~>~~~

Back at the main doors to the building, Sam, Dean and Emma cautiously pushed through, knowing they were more than likely gonna find a lot more by night than day. Each had their equipment on them as they walked in, Sam with a flashlight, Dean with an EMF meter and Emma holding a video camera on night vision.

“Getting readings?” Sam asked as the EMF meter beeped.

“Yeah, big time,” Dean said.

“This place is orbing like crazy,” Emma said, motioning to the camera lens where there were white balls floating around.

“Probably multiple spirits out and about,” Dean said.

“If these unrecovered bodies are casing the haunting….” Sam began.

“We gotta find them and burn them,” Dean finished. “Just be careful though. The only thing that makes me more nervous than a pissed off spirit is the pissed off spirit of a psycho killer.”

As they walked down the corridor, they didn’t notice the figure pass quickly behind them, and didn’t see a thing as they turned. And seeing nothing, they carried on walking, also not noticing the spirit in the side corridor as they passed. The spirit of an old patient, his head shaking violently as he sat strapped in a straight jacket.

The three moved off in opposite directions, Dean down one corridor with his EMF meter while Emma took the night screen camcorder into another room with Sam and his flashlight. Searching round all the different nooks and crannies of the room, Emma followed a sound with her camcorder, which picked up the images of a woman, a large hole through the side of her head. Sam and Emma gasped in shock, backing up quickly as the woman slowly approached them.

“Dean. Dean! Shotgun!” Emma called out and Dean came racing in, shotgun aimed at the woman.

“Get down!” Dean yelled, firing as Sam and Emma ducked, the rock salt repelling the spirit as she disappeared.

“That was weird,” Emma said as her and Sam got to their feet.

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Dean said, walking away with Sam and Emma following.

“No, Dean, I mean, it was weird that she didn’t attack us,” Emma said.

“Looked pretty agro from where I was standing,” Dean said.

“She didn’t hurt us,” Emma said. “She didn’t even try. So if she didn’t want to hurt us then what did she want?”

Walking past one of the rooms, a low noise caught their ears. Turning his shotgun to the room, Dean walked in cautiously with Sam and Emma to where there was an upturned bed against the corner wall. Emma tipping it aside, the three came face to face with a terrified Kat, curled up in the corner.

“It’s all right. We’re not gonna hurt you. It’s ok,” Emma said as Dean lowered the shotgun and Kat stood up. “What’s your name?”

“Katherine,” Kat said. “Kat.”

“Ok,” Dean said. “I’m Dean. This is Sam and Emma.”

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked.

“Um, my boyfriend Gavin….” Kat started.

“Is he here?” Dean interrupted her.

“Somewhere,” Kat said, Sam, Dean and Emma exchanging a worried glance. “He thought it would be fun and try and see some ghosts. I thought it was all just, you know, pretend. I’ve seen things. I heard Gavin scream and….”

“All right,” Dean said, taking her hand and leading her to the door. “Kat, come on. Sam’s gonna get you out of here and then we’re gonna find your boyfriend.”

“No, no,” Kat said, pulling away from him. “I’m not gonna leave without Gavin. I’m coming with you.”

“It’s no joke around her ok, it’s dangerous,” Dean said.

“That’s why I’ve gotta find him,” Kat said adamantly.

“All right,” Dean said, giving in. “I guess we’re gonna split up, then. Let’s go.”

@~~>~~~

Looking for Gavin, the group separated, Sam and Emma searching in one direction while Dean was with Kat.

“Gavin!” Sam called into the quiet of the building.

“Gavin?” Emma repeated, aiming the flashlight round the corridors. Turning, she came face to face with Sam, who was staring at her. “What?” Emma asked cautiously.

“Nothing,” Sam said with a smile. “It’s just funny that in a situation like this, I’m thinking how little time me and you get to spend together. Just us two.”

For a second, Emma just continued to stare at Sam, wondering why, as he said, he was bringing this up now of all times. After the second, she smiled slightly, somewhat seeing his point and linking her arm through his.

“You’re right,” she said. “Well, this is a start.”

“Yeah. What fun we’re having!” Sam said, making Emma laugh slightly.

“Ok,” Emma said. “If we get out here, remind me to get rid of Dean for a while. We can have friend time then.”

“You’re on,” Sam said with a smile, the two going back to the matter at hand.

@~~>~~~

Up on the other side of the building, Dean and Kat were also searching for Gavin.

“Gavin? Gavin!” Kat called into the air.

“Hey, I got a question for you,” Dean said, stopping and turning to her. “You’ve seen a lot of horror movies, yeah?”

“I guess so,” Kat said.

“Do me a favour,” Dean said. “Next time you see one, pay attention. When someone says a place is haunted, don’t go in.”

Dean walked off, continuing the search, and Kat followed, just as a strange shadow passed by the window behind them.

@~~>~~~

Up on their side of the building, Sam and Emma walked into a room to see Gavin lay on the floor.

“Gavin. Hey, Gavin,” Sam said, trying to shake him awake. It worked, Gavin waking with a jump and edging away from them.

“Hey, it’s ok, it’s ok,” Sam said. “We’re here to help.”

“Who are you?” Gavin asked.

“My name is Sam. This is Emma,” Sam said, helping Gavin to his feet. “We found your girlfriend.”

“Kat?” Gavin said.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

“Is she all right?” Gavin asked.

“She’s worried about you,” Emma said. “Are you ok?”

“I was running,” Gavin said. “I think I fell.”

“You were running from what?” Sam asked.

“There was… there was this girl,” Gavin stuttered out. “Her… her face…. It was all messed up.”

“Ok, ok. Listen, listen,” Emma said. “This girl, did she try to hurt you?”

“What? No. She….” Gavin said, his sentence faltering off.

“She what?” Emma said.

“She kissed me,” Gavin said, half whispering.

“Um…. But… but she didn’t hurt you physically?” Emma said.

“Girl, she kissed me,” Gavin said. “I’m scarred for life.”

“Well, trust me, it could’ve been worse,” Emma said, her and Sam laughing slightly. “Now, do you remember anything else?”

“She…. Actually, she tried to whisper something in my ear,” Gavin said.

“What?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know. I ran like hell,” Gavin admitted.

@~~>~~~

Back down the opposite side of the building, Dean and Kat were still on their search for Gavin, Dean’s flashlight doing just as his had and flickering out completely.

“You son of a bitch,” he muttered, putting away the useless flashlight and pulling a lighter from his pocket. “It’s all right. I got a lighter.”

“Ow. You’re hurting my arm,” Kat said softly.

“What are you talking about?” Dean said. Turning round, he held the glow from the lighter near her arm, seeing a dead looking something with a hold on Kat’s arm. With a scream, Kat was forcibly pulled into a side room, the door locking behind her.

“Kat!” Dean yelled into the room, pulling on the door while Kat pounded on it. “Kat, hang on!”

With a crowbar, Dean tried to pry the door open when Kat stopped pounding, sensing something else in the room with her. She turned, but there was nothing there. Nothing until she turned again and the spirit of a shaggy looking man was in front of her. She screamed, backing away, but the spirit was now behind her. Inside the small room, she tried her best to get away from him, screaming still.

Outside the room, Dean was still trying to pry the door open when Sam, Emma and Gavin came running up to him.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“She’s inside with one of them,” Dean said.

“Help me!” Kat yelled out, pressed against the wall and trying not to look at the spirit.

“Kat!” Gavin screamed through the door.

“Get me out of here!” Kat yelled again.

“Kat,” Emma yelled through the door to her. “It’s not gonna hurt you! Listen to me! You have to face it. You have to calm down.”

“She’s gotta what?” Dean said.

“I have to what?” Kat repeated.

“The spirits. They’re not trying to hurt us,” Emma said. “They’re trying to communicate. You gotta listen to it. You gotta face it.”

“You face it!” Kat yelled back to her.

“No. It’s the only way you’re gonna get out of there,” Emma told her.

“No!” Kat screamed.

“Look at it, that’s all. Come on, you can do it,” Emma yelled to her.

For a moment, Sam, Dean, Emma and Gavin waited outside while there was silence inside. Waited with baited breath while inside the room, Kat slowly turned to face the spirit as he leaned in to whisper to her.

“Kat?” Gavin called into the room after too much silence.

“Babe, I hope you’re right about this,” Dean said to Emma.

“Yeah, me too,” Emma said as the door clicked open, Kat stood dazed in the doorway.

“Kat,” Gavin said, grabbing her as she came out of the room and Sam, Dean and Emma took her place, looking round.

“One thirty-seven,” Kat said.

“Sorry?” Dean said.

“It whispered in my ear,” Kat told them. “137.”

“Room number,” Sam, Dean and Emma said together, exchanging a look as they bent down by their bag.

“All right, so if these spirits aren’t trying to hurt anyone….” Sam said.

“Then what are they trying to do?” Dean added.

“Maybe that’s what they’ve been trying to tell us,” Emma said.

“I guess we’ll find out. All right,” Dean said, the three getting to their feet. “So…. Now, you guys ready to leave this place?”

“That’s an understatement,” Kat said.

“Ok,” Dean said, turning to Sam. “You get them out of here. We’re gonna go find room 137.”

With a flashlight each and a shotgun, Dean and Emma made their way down the corridor while Sam took Kat and Gavin to safety.

“So how do you guys know about all this ghost stuff?” Kat asked now they were away from Dean and Emma.

“It’s kind of our job,” Sam said.

“Why would anyone want a job like that?” Kat said.

“I had a crappy guidance counsellor,” Sam said with a small laugh.

“And Dean? He’s your boss?” Kat said.

“No,” Sam said, turning to her.

But while he said it, he did wonder just how many people who came in to their lives thought that. Dean had a way of taking charge of the situation, whatever the situation, and whoever the situation was with. And the taken charge deal went high beyond just the big brother deal. And Kat’s question made him wonder whether he was glad other people could see this, or even more annoyed at Dean for making it too obvious.

Or then there was the option of being annoyed at himself for letting it happen.

@~~>~~~

While they were heading out, Dean and Emma were walking deeper into the building, looking at door after door for room 137.

“Dean,” Emma called as her flashlight beam shone on door number 137.

“Bingo,” Dean said, walking up behind her. Pushing the door, Dean tipped aside the chair blocking it and walked in, Emma behind him. On the floor at their feet, the first thing they saw was a plague reading ‘Dr. Sanford Ellicott’, clearly meant for the door. Stepping over that and the rest of the debris in the room, Dean and Emma took to searching through the old file cabinet.

@~~>~~~

Heading to where Sam knew the entrance was, Sam arrived there with Kat and Gavin to find it blocked.

“All right. I think we have a small problem,” Sam said.

“Let’s break it down,” Gavin said.

“I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Sam said.

“Then a window,” Gavin tried again.

“They’re barred,” Kat stated.

“Well, how are we supposed to get out?” Gavin said, getting increasingly hysterical.

“That’s the point. We’re not,” Sam said. “There’s something in here. It doesn’t want us to leave.”

“Those patients,” Kat said.

“No,” Sam said. “Something else.”

@~~>~~~

In room 137, Dean and Emma were still searching around, looking through the debris, the file cabinet and the trash can. Kneeling beside the desk, Dean noticed a removable panel in the wall. Inside was a brown leather case, which he held up to Emma.

“This is why I get paid the big bucks,” Dean said. Emma took the case off him, taking a journal from inside and flipping through the pages.

“Patients journal,” Emma read aloud. Dean pulled out a chair from behind the desk, about to sit on it, when he was swatted away by Emma, who took the seat. Glaring at her, all it took was beautifully innocent smiles for him to give in, kneeling beside her and holding the flashlight over the journal.

“Why all work and no play makes Dr. Ellicott a very dull boy,” Emma said as they flipped through the pages of the journal.

@~~>~~~

By the door, Gavin and Kat were stood nervously alone while Sam was looking round for any other way out for them.

“All right,” Sam said, walking back round the corner to them. “I’ve looked everywhere. There’s no other way out.”

“So what the hell are we gonna do?” Gavin said.

“For starters, we’re not gonna panic,” Sam said.

“Why the hell not?” Gavin asked, clearly panicking a lot. Before Sam could answer him, his phone rang, and he had to answer that.

“Hey,” he said into the receiver.

“Sam, it’s me,” Emma’s voice came through the other end, almost drown out by static. “I see it. It’s coming at us.”

“Where are you?” Sam asked.

“We’re in the basement. Hurry up!” she replied.

“I’m on my way,” Sam said, hanging up and turning to the other two. “All right. Can either of you handle a shotgun?”

“What? No,” Gavin said.

“I can,” Kat said, Gavin staring oddly at his girlfriend. “My dad took me skeet shooting a couple of times.”

“All right, here,” Sam said, handing Kat the shotgun. “It’s loaded with rock salt. Now it might not kill a spirit, but it’ll repel it. So if you see something, shoot.”

“Ok,” Kat said.

“Ok,” Sam repeated, walking away, the last sound he heard being Kat cocking the shotgun.

@~~>~~~

Following Emma’s directions, Sam was looking round the basement for her and his brother.

“Dean!” he called into the air, trying and failing to open a locked door. He instead turned to a door with a sign saying bio-hazard, cautiously stepping through it with his shotgun aimed high.

“Emma!” Sam called, searching round the room, which became more difficult as his flashlight flickered and went out. While Sam was banging it, trying to get it working again, a concealed wall in the door swung open behind him. Still with his shotgun aimed high, Sam cautiously walked inside.

“Dean? Emma?”

As a figure breezed past the curtain behind, Sam was on guard, turning in an instant. He pushed the curtain aside, prepared for anything, but nothing was there. Turning back round, Sam this time came face to face with the dead, and rather animated, body of Dr. Sanford Ellicott who took a hold of Sam’s face, electricity crackling from his fingers.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sanford said as Sam struggled in his hold. “I’m going to make you all better.”

@~~>~~~

At the main exit, Kat and Gavin were still standing guard. Kat was sat on the floor, the shotgun resting against her shoulder, while Gavin paced in front of her.

“Hey, Gavin?” Kat said.

“Yeah?” Gavin said, kneeling beside her.

“If we make it out of here alive, we are so breaking up,” Kat said, the sound of a clatter and approaching footsteps reaching their ears before Gavin could say anything else. Turning towards the sound, they saw a shadow walking across the wall, heading their way. “Did you hear that?” Kat said.

“Something’s coming,” Gavin said, the pair standing up. The shadow turned into Dean and Emma walking round the corner, although Kat didn’t se this in time and shot anyway. Dean quickly ducked, pulling Emma with him.

“Damn it, damn it!” Dean grated out.

“Don’t shoot, it’s us!” Emma called round the corner.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kat called to them.

“Son of a….” Emma droned out, her and Dean getting up and coming fully round the corner. On the wall where their heads should have been was now a large hole made by the rock salt round. It seems spirits weren’t the only things rock salt could harm.

“What are you still doing here?” Dean asked. “Where’s Sam?”

“He went to the basement,” Gavin said, motioning to Emma. “You called him.”

“I didn’t call him,” Emma said.

“His cell phone rang,” Kat said. “He said it was you.”

“Basement, huh?” Emma said, to which Gavin and Kat nodded. Sharing a worried glance with Emma, Dean knelt and took another gun from the bag at his feet.

“All right. Watch yourselves,” Dean said as he and Emma began walking away. “And watch out for us.”

@~~>~~~

Down in the basement, Dean and Emma were now wondering round, looking for Sam.

“Sammy!” Emma called into the quiet emptiness.

“Sam, you down here?” Dean called. “Sam!”

“Sam!” Emma called again, louder, her and Dean turning to find Sam now stood inches away from them, making the pair jump back slightly.

“Doll, answer us when we’re calling you,” Emma yelled at him. “You all right?”

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Sam said.

“You know that wasn’t me who called your cell, right?” Emma said.

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said. “I think something lured me down here.”

“I think I know who,” Dean said. “Dr. Ellicott. That’s what the other spirits have been trying to tell us. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“No,” Sam lied easily. “How do you know it was him?”

“Because we found his log book,” Emma said. “Apparently, he was experimenting on his patients. Some awful stuff. Makes lobotomies look like a couple of aspirin.”

“But it was the patients who rioted,” Sam said.

“Yeah, they were rioting against Dr. Ellicott,” Dean said. “Dr. Feelgood was working on some sort of, like, extreme rage therapy. He thought that if he could get his patients to vent their anger, then they’d be cured of it. Instead, it only made them worse and worse, and angrier and angrier. So I’m thinking, what if his spirit is doing the same thing? To the cop. To the kids in the 70’s. Making them so angry they become homicidal.”

“Come on,” Emma said, her and Dean walking past Sam. “We gotta find his bones and torch them.”

“How?” Sam asked. “The police never found his body.”

“The log book said he had some sort of hidden procedure room down here somewhere where he’d work on his patients,” Emma said. “So…. I mean, if I was a patient, I’d drag his ass down here, do a little work on it myself.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, not moving after them. “It sounds kind of….”

“Crazy?” Emma finished for him.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Yeah, exactly,” Dean said, walking through a door with the word ‘bio-hazard’ across, Emma following while he motioned for Sam to do the same. Sam, for a moment, just stared at them, the look in his eyes far from that of Sam.

Finally following them into the room, Sam found the pair searching round for the hidden room.

“I told you,” Sam said. “I looked everywhere. I didn’t find a hidden room.”

“Well, that’s why they call it hidden,” Emma said as Dean’s ears pricked up to another sound in the room. The sound of whistling air coming from behind one of the walls.

“You hear that?” Dean said.

“What?” Sam asked as Dean and Emma knelt beside one of the walls, Dean holding his hand against a crack along the bottom only to find just where the air was coming from.

“There’s a door here,” Dean said.

“Dean,” Sam said, pointing the shotgun in his hand to the pair on their knees. Dean and Emma looked up to the barrel of the shotgun just as a trickle of blood ran from Sam’s nose. “Step back from the door,” Sam said, wiping the blood away.

“Sam, put the gun down,” Dean said, him and Emma getting to their feet.

“Is that an order?” Sam said.

“No, it’s more of a friendly request,” Emma said, taking a step towards Sam only to back up as he held the gun higher.

“Because I’m getting pretty tired of taking your orders,” Sam said.

“I knew it,” Dean said. “Ellicott did something to you, didn’t he?”

“For once in your life, just shut your mouth,” Sam said

“I can’t help but agree with him, Dean,” Emma muttered to her boyfriend.

“Why are you agreeing with me?” Sam said, turning to her for the time. Or turning on her. “You usually jump through hoops to defend your wonder-boy.”

“Hey, let’s not start on me now,” Emma said.

“What are you gonna do, Sam?” Dean said. “Guns filled with rock salt. Not gonna kill me.”

In answer, Sam shot the gun, the non-fatal rock salt hitting Dean in the stomach and sending him flying through the closed door behind them, Emma rushing after him as he lay on his back.

“No. But it’ll hurt like hell,” Sam said, watching Emma as she tried to slap Dean awake.

“Dean! Dean!” she screamed out, starting to shake him as he woke, groaning in pain. Emma turned, kneeling by his side as Sam stood over the two of them.

“Sam! We gotta burn Ellicott’s bones and all this’ll be over,” Dean groaned out. “You’ll be back to normal.”

“I am normal,” Sam said. “I’m just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? Because you’re following dad’s orders like a goods little soldier? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?”

“This isn’t you talking, Sam,” Dean tried.

“That’s the difference between you and me,” Sam continued. “I have a mind of my own. I’m not pathetic, like you.”

“So, what are you gonna do, huh?” Dean said. “You gonna kill me?”

“You know what? I am sick of doing what you tell me to do,” Sam said. “We’re no closer to finding dad today then we were six months ago.”

“Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you,” Dean said, taking his gun from his jeans and holding it out to Sam. “Come on. Take it.”

“Dean, what are you doing?” Emma said.

“Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt,” Dean said to Sam.

“That’s why you don’t give your psychotic brother the gun,” Emma said through gritted teeth, watching as thankfully, Sam hesitating. Maybe there was still a bit of Sam there.

“Take it!” Dean said, Sam doing just that and snatching the gun from Dean’s hand, dropping Emma’s hopes. He threw the useless shotgun aside, aiming the gun at Dean.

“You hate me that much?” Dean said. “You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead.”

Sam, truly going for the hurt instead of the kill, turned the gun on Emma now, Emma backing away a little so she was now lay beside Dean.

“Sam, come on,” she said almost desperately.

“So you’re gonna shoot her now?” Dean said, his eyes still held on his brother. “Hurt the both of us by killing the one thing we both care about. Go ahead, if you can.”

“Dean, this is my life on the line now,” Emma said.

“Pull the trigger,” Dean said, ignoring Emma beside him. But again, Sam hesitated. “Do it!”

As Dean’s yell echoed, Sam pulled the trigger on the gun, Emma flinching slightly. The next sound that echoed around the room was the hammer clicking against the barrel of the gun.

Sam, confused, pulled the trigger again. But again all that happened was the barrel clicking. Grabbing Sam by the collar, Dean pulled him down and punched him, sending him backwards.

Getting to her feet, Emma turned and helped Dean up, the pair walking over to Sam.

“Man, I’m not gonna give you a loaded pistol,” Dean said.

“Let me in on that one next time,” Emma said, turning to Sam and knocking him out with a perfectly placed and waited kick.

“Sorry, Sammy,” Emma said. Straightening his limbs again, Dean groaned in pain. “You ok?” Emma asked.

“Fine. You?” Dean replied.

“Great,” Emma said. “Considering my best friend just tried to kill me.”

“Well, let’s find these bones, burn them, and get Sammy back,” Dean said, him and Emma searching the room.

Emma held the shotgun while Dean held the flash, the pair knocking aside curtains and tables. Behind the two, the spirit of Sanford Ellicott swept behind them, Emma turning to slow to see him, but not to see the tuft of hair poking out of the side of a small cupboard. Grabbing Dean’s attention, they moved to the cupboard, Dean opening it to find Ellicott’s rotted body, the smell making the two cough and gag.

“Oh, that’s just gross,” Emma said as Dean went to work.

With the flashlight and his bag of tricks down beside him, Dean poured salt of the body, Emma standing back while he kept his hand covering the smell. Neither of them noticed the flashlight slowly flickering out behind them.

“Yeah, soak it up,” Dean said as he poured lighter fluid over the body.

As the couple stood up, ready to finish the job, one of the operating table flew from the other side of the room, knocking them both in opposite directions. Her head hitting hard against the wall, Emma sat slightly dazed while Ellicott chose Dean to attacking, leaning over his body and taking hold of his head, electricity fizzing from his fingers like with Sam.

“Don’t be afraid,” Ellicott’s spirit told Dean. “I’m going to help you. I’m going to make you all better.”

Her head still pounding, Emma shook herself out of her daze and crawled forward, taking the lighter from Dean’s bag and throwing the lit flame at Ellicott’s rotted body. His body bursting into flames, Ellicott’s spirit let go of Dean, his own body burning before his eyes as Emma scrambled towards Dean, the two backing.

Ellicott watched in horror and disbelief as his hands began to rot away, turning to ash in front of him. His arm round Emma at his side, Dean covered their bodies as Ellicott’s rotting form dropped in front of them, shattering into ashes. Sitting up slightly and trying to catch their breathe, Dean and Emma turned as Sam came to, Ellicott’s control over now his spirit was gone.

“You’re not gonna try and kill me, are you?” Emma said to Sam.

“No,” Sam said, massaging his aching jaw.

“Good,” Dean said. “Because that would be awkward.”

@~~>~~~

With Ellicott’s spirit exorcised from the asylum, the five that were inside could now leave. Stood by their car, Sam, Dean and Emma said their goodbyes to the young teenage couple.

“Thanks, guys,” Kat said sincerely.

“Yeah, thanks,” Gavin added.

“No more haunted asylums, ok?” Emma said. With a small smile, Gavin and Kat walked back while Sam, Dean and Emma turned to leave in theirs.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, stopping him before he got inside the car. “I’m sorry, man. You too, Emma. I said and did some awful things back there.”

“You remember all that?” Emma said, smiling slightly at her friend.

“Yeah,” Sam said. And at this, Emma portion of the conversation was over. She looked between the two brothers, seeing the different expressions on their faces, and climbed into the back of the car. What had happened in the asylum were issues that the brothers needed to sort out. She couldn’t be the extra factor this time.

“It’s like I couldn’t control it,” Sam said to Dean. “But I didn’t mean it, any of it.”

“You didn’t, huh?” Dean said, something in the back of his mind telling him that wasn’t exactly the truth.

“No, of course not,” Sam said. All Dean did was nod slightly, an odd knowing look in his eyes. “Do we need to talk about this?”

“No,” Dean said. “I’m not really in the sharing-and-caring kind of mood. I just wanna get some sleep.”

Throwing his bag into the back beside Emma, Dean slid into the front seat of the car, pushing everything he truly wanted to say to the back of his mind for some other time far, far away. Just like he always did.

@~~>~~~

Dean got his sleep as the trio relaxed in the motel room, Dean and Emma lay curled comfortable together as always. Not even the trilling of his cell phone could wake Dean or Emma. But it did wake Sam.

“Dean,” he said sleepily, trying to wake his brother. Dean or Emma not even stirring slightly, Sam picked up the phone himself. “Hello?” Sam said into the receiver. The voice that spoke on the other end woke Sam completely, his body reacting on hit’s own as he sat upright.

“Dad?”


	11. Scarecrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean and Emma finally make contact with the boy’s father, but he tells them to stop looking for him and sends them on another ghost-hunting job. Frustrated with their father's evasiveness, Sam sets out alone to find him while Dean and Emma stay back to obey his father. Dean and Emma investigate a small town in Indiana where couples have gone missing the same day each year and discover the farmers are sacrificing them to a Pagan God who takes the form of a scarecrow. While en route to California, Sam meets Meg, a young backpacker, who unbeknownst to Sam is working for a demon.

Burkitsville, Indiana. A small town with very few visitors. And now, at the darkest time of night, a young married couple, Holly and Vince Parker, are ready to leave. They are thankful to these people who, while they had passed through the town, had manage to fix a major problem on their car they had known nothing about. Leaving the small diner into the gas station, they are followed by the sweet elderly owners, Harley and Stacey Jorgeson, and their equally sweet niece, Emily.

“And before you leave, one of our apple pies,” Stacey said, handing Holly a box containing the pie. “On the house.”

“Oh, my God, thank you so much!” Holly exclaimed.

“You’re welcome,” Stacey said with a sweet smile.

“Hey, we should get lost more often,” Holly said to her new husband. “I mean, everyone in this town is so nice.”

“Yeah, what’s the catch?” Vince joked while Harley finished filling their car with gas.

“You’re all set,” Harley said, turning back to them.

“Thanks,” Vince said, shaking his hand. His sleeve on his shirt rolled up slightly, Emily noticed the intricate Celtic tattoo travelling up his arm in black.

“That’s a cool tattoo,” Emily said.

“Thanks,” Vince said with a smile at the pretty young girl.

“So, let’s get you back to the interstate,” Harley said.

“Yeah, please,” Vince said, turning his attention back to him,

“Take Laskey straight out of town,” Harley began.

“And then you’re gonna turn right on Orchard Road,” Stacey finished for him.

“Ok. Thank you,” Vince said, him and Holly getting into his car as the elderly couple and their niece waved goodbye to the newlyweds as they drove off.

@~~>~~~

Going by Harley and Stacey’s directions, the couple made it to the orchard along Orchard road before their car broke down, spluttering to a stop.

“What happened?” Holly asked.

“I don’t know. Car just died,” he said, taking out his cell phone to find no signal. “Cell phone, too.”

“How is that possible?” Holly asked as they got out of the car, looking out across the dark orchard.

“Come on,” he said to her, starting to walk towards the orchard. “Looks like a house over there.”

“No, I’m not going down there,” Holly said, clearly terrified.

“Holly, we need help, we can’t just wait here,” Vince told her.

“Ok,” she said, reluctantly following him through the orchard and keeping close. A little way in, they came to the orchard scarecrow tied to its post. Exchanging a look, they moved a little closer to it.

“Check it out,” Vince said with a cheery smile. “If I only had a brain….”

“We wouldn’t be lost,” Holly mocked.

“Thanks,” he replied to his wife’s sarcasm. “That has got to be the freakiest damn scarecrow I’ve ever seen.”

“It scares me,” she told him, beginning to walk away. But a quick glance back at the scarecrow and Holly could have sworn she saw it’s hand move, jumping towards Vince with a gasp.

“Please, let’s just hurry, okay?” Holly said, the pair walking away again at a quicker pace.

A few more seconds of walking and there was a definite rustling behind them that wasn’t from their feet. Turning, they found nobody.

“Did you hear that?” Vince asked Holly, her answer a quick nod.

“Hello?” Vince called into the darkness. “Who’s there?”

Still nobody.

Knowing they heard something and both their fear levels on the same pitch now, the couple turn back and starting running for the house at the back of the orchard, needing to get out of her as quick as possible.

Running ahead slightly, Holly turned back round for Vince only to find him no longer behind her. Stopping in her tracks, she looked round for her husband.

“Vince?” she called out. “Vince?”

When there was no answer, she turned, heading back towards the house and hoping to God Vince was either not too far behind, or not too far in front.

Her hastily retreating feet didn’t take her very far before tripping over something in the dark and sending her flying to the ground. Turning to see what she had tripped over, a scream escaped her throat as she saw it was Vince’s mutilated corpse, his skin scraped from his flash.

Her scream grew louder as her attack loomed over her.

The scarecrow, freed from its post.

@~~>~~~

One year on from that day, now in the present day, the demon fighting Winchester and Gray trio are asleep in their hotel room. On the table beside them, Dean’s phone trilled into action, but Dean didn’t wake to answer it. He simply stirred slightly, gripping tighter to Emma in his arms. Sam, however, was woken by the sound.

“Dean,” he called to his brother, but still got no response. Reaching out, Sam answered the phone himself.

“Hello?” he said sleepily in the receiver.

In a payphone in California, John Winchester responded to his younger son’s voice.

“Sam, is that you?” his dad answered, sleep now forgotten from Sam’s mind as he sat bolt upright in his bed.

“Dad?” he said in shock. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” John replied.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Sam said softly. “We didn’t know where you were, if you were okay.”

“Sammy, I’m all right,” John said. “What about you, Dean and Emma?”

“We’re fine,” Sam said, the pair behind him now beginning to wake. “Dad, where are you?”

“Sorry, kiddo, I can’t tell you that.”

“What? Why not?”

“Is that Dad?” Dean asked, him and Emma now sat up in their beds.

“Look, I know this is hard for you to understand,” John said on the other end. “You’re just gonna have to trust me on this.”

“You’re after it, aren’t you?” Sam questioned. “The thing that killed Mom.”

“Yeah. It’s a demon, Sam.”

“A demon? You know for sure?”

“A demon?” Dean questioned at the word. “What’s he saying?”

“I do,” John said to Sam, who was still ignoring his brother’s questions. “Listen, Sammy, I, uh… I also know what happened to your girlfriend. I’m so sorry. I would’ve done anything to protect you from that.”

“You know where it is?” Sam said.

“Yeah, I think I’m finally closing in on it.”

“Let us help.”

“You can’t. You can’t be any part of it.”

“Why not?”

“Give me the phone,” Dean said, holding out his hand.

“Listen, Sammy, that’s why I’m calling,” John said. “You, your brother and Emma, you gotta stop looking for me. Alright, now, I need you to write down these names.”

“Names?” Sam questioned. “What names, Dad… talk to me, tell me what’s going on.”

“Look, we don’t have time for this. This is bigger than you think, they’re everywhere. Even us talking right now, it’s not safe.”

“No. Alright? No way.”

“Give me the phone,” Dean demanded again.

“I have given you an order,” John said to his youngest. “Now, you stop following me, and you do your job. You understand me? Now, take down these names.”  
Giving up on asking, Dean snatched the phone from Sam, who simply let him.

“Dad, it’s me,” Dean said into the phone. “Where are you…? Yes, sir.… Uh, yeah, I got a pen. What are their names?”

From behind him, Dean failed to notice Emma sigh deeply and bow his head, already seeing exactly what she saw every time Dean got around his father. Him falling into line.

@~~>~~~

After the conversation with their father, the brother’s and Emma were now packed into the Impala, driving to where John had led them to.

“Alright,” Sam said. “So, the names Dad gave us, they’re all couples?”

“Three different couples,” Dean said. “All went missing.”

“And they’re all from different towns? Different states?”

“That’s right. You got Washington, New York, Colorado. Each couple took a road trip cross-country. None of them arrived at their destination, and none of them were ever heard from again.”

“Well, it’s a big country, Dean. They could’ve disappeared anywhere.”

“Yeah, could’ve. But each one’s route took ‘em to the same part of Indiana. Always on the second week of April. One year after another after another.”

“This is the second week of April,” Emma said from the back seat.

“Yep,” Dean told her.

“So, Dad is sending us to Indiana to go hunting for something before another couple vanishes?” Sam said.

“Yahtzee,” Dean said, looking down at the information they had gotten from their father. “Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? All the different obits Dad had to go through? The man’s a master.”

Clearly pissed to the max, Sam abruptly turned the car off to the side of the road and shut the engine off, making both Dean and Emma stare at him.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked.

“We’re not going to Indiana,” Sam stated.

“We’re not?”

“No. We’re going to California. Dad called from a payphone. Sacramento area code.”

“Sam….” Dean began.

“Dean,” Sam cut him off. “If this demon killed Mom and Jess, and Dad’s closing in, we’ve gotta be there. We’ve gotta help.”

“Dad doesn’t want our help.”

“I don’t care.”

“He’s given us an order.”

“I don’t care. We don’t always have to do what he says.”

“Sam, Dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives, it’s important.”

“Alright, I understand, believe me, I understand. But I’m talking one week here, man, to get answers. To get revenge.”

“Alright, look, I know how you feel.”

“Do you?” Sam said coldly, shocking his brother at the tone in his voice. “How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?”

“Dad said it wasn’t safe. For any of us. I mean, he obviously knows something that we don’t, so if he says to stay away, we stay away.”

“I don’t understand the blind faith you have in the man. I mean, it’s like you don’t even question him.”

“Yeah, it’s called being a good son!” Dean yelled, his anger filling up. Hitting the last straw, Sam aggressively jumped out of the car, Dean and Emma following as he went to the trunk.

“You’re a selfish bastard, you know that?” Dean continued. “You just do whatever you want. Don’t care what anybody thinks.”

“That’s what you really think?” Sam asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, then this selfish bastard is going to California,” Sam said, hefting his backpack over his shoulder and turning to walk away.

“Come on, you’re not serious,” Dean called after him.

“I am serious,” Sam yelled back.

“Guys, come on,” Emma piped up, trying to be the mediator as always, but knowing it was probably hopeless in this case. “This is ridiculous.”

“It’s the middle of the night!” Dean yelled at his brother. “Hey, I’m taking off, I will leave your ass, you hear me?”

“Dean!” Emma grated out, turning to him as Sam stopped and did the same.

“That’s what I want you to do,” Sam said.

“Sam!” Emma called out, this time turning to him, watching as the two brothers stared each other down, waiting to see what the other would do. This was a game they played often. One usually without a winner.

“Goodbye, Sam,” Dean said, closing the trunk and heading back to the car.

“You guys can’t be serious,” Emma screamed to the both of them. “Sam, don’t do this.”

“I’ve got to Emma,” Sam told her. “I’m sorry.”

“But…. I mean come on, we’re meant to stick together,” Emma said, getting desperate.

“Not this time,” Sam said.

“Well what am I suppose to do with both of you going off in opposite directions?”

“Emma, I have to find my dad.”

“But I can’t be expected to choose between my boyfriend and my best friend?”

“And I’m not asking you to.”

Emma stood where she was, no idea what she should do next. She looked between Sam and Dean, both of them stood either side of her but a bit apart. And neither was pleading with her, telling her she had to come with him. They were just waiting, letting her make her own decision. The problem was, the choice was and always had been already made. Sam was like her baby brother and she loved him so much….

But she loved Dean more.

With tears in her eyes, Emma turned to Sam, softly mouthing the words ‘I’m sorry’, before she turned and headed back to the Impala, silently slipping into the passenger seat while Dean got in beside her and drove off, Sam watching after them before walking his own way.

The opposite way.

@~~>~~~

Pulling up in Burketsville for the case, the car was how it had been for the entire trip. Silent.

Emma was sat staring vacantly out of the window, seemingly not even noticing they had stopped. She was thinking about Sam and just where he was right now. She had hated leaving him on the side of the road, but there was nothing else she could have done. Sam was determined to find his dad and the demon that had killed Jessica, while Dean was determined to be a good little boy, always following his father’s orders. She had been with the boys long enough to know that not even she would be able to change their minds when they got stubborn ideas in their heads.

Dean, sat behind the driver’s wheel, was also thinking about his brother. Scrolling through the names on his phone, he stopped when it hit Sam. This was his little brother, and he wanted to know if he was all right, but what would he say? Whether it seemed so or not, the pair were so alike in many ways, including their stubborn nature’s. Sam wasn’t gonna stop until he found dad, and Dean wasn’t gonna let his father down when he gave him an order. Talking now would just cause another argument between the two, probably making things ten times worse.

Snapping his phone shut, Dean made up his mind and shut off the engine, getting out of the car. The engine stopping and the car door slamming shut finally knocked Emma out of her trance, stepping out of the car and following Dean to a small café. Scotty’s Café, with Scotty said on the porch in front of it.

“Let me guess. Scotty,” Dean said, gesturing up to the sign.

“Yep,” Scotty said, glancing up at the sign above his head.

“Hi, my name’s John Bonham and….” Dean began.

“Isn’t that the drummer for Led Zeppelin?” Scotty said before Dean could try and come up with an alias for Emma, shocking him a little.

“Wow. Good. Classic rock fan.”

“What can I do for you, John?”

“I was wondering if, uh, you’d seen these people by chance,” Dean said, handing two flyers to Scotty. They are missing person posters for Holly and Vince

“Nope,” Scotty said, looking down at them. “Who are they?”

“Friends of ours. They went missing about a year ago. They passed through somewhere around here, and I’ve already asked around Scottsburg and Salem….”

“Sorry,” Scotty interrupted, handing the flyers back to Dean. “We don’t get many strangers around here.” Dean and Emma just nodded slightly.

“Scotty, you’ve got a smile that lights up a room, anybody ever tell you that?” Emma said with a bright smile of her own. Scotty just stared at her, not taking the bait.

“Never mind,” Emma said with a small chuckle as her and Dean began to walk away. “See you around.”

@~~>~~~

Out on the highway, Sam was still walking, trying to hitch a ride unsuccessfully. And the whole time, he couldn’t help wondering if he really had made the right choice.

Finally hearing after his father after this long had been almost a God send, especially when he had told him he was on the trail of the demon who had ruined his life twice. And there was no way in this world, despite was his father told him, was he not going to be involved in this fight. Dean, however, was another matter.

Dean was the good son, always doing as father said. Not the son who had wanted a life of his own and gone off to college. And Sam knew Dean would never ignore a direct order from their father. He also didn’t blame Emma for going with him. She loved him, he knew that, but it wasn’t like the way she loved Dean. Sam was her little brother, Dean was the guy she had chosen to be with, spend her life with. He’d never expected her to turn around and go with him. But still, he wondering if separating right now was the right thing to do.

Emma had been right when she said they needed to stick together, especially with all the things that were after them. They were numero uno on the demonic hit list after the countless evil plans they had stopped. But that still didn’t stop both him and his brother from being stubborn and wanted what they wanted, even if it meant separate things. Maybe he and Dean were a little more alike than they seemed on the surface.

Turning, Sam was knocked out of his thoughts as he saw another hitchhiker. A young girl with short blonde hair sat with her back to him and headphones in her ears.

“Hey,” Sam called to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the music in her ears. Walking up behind her, he gently placed his hand on her shoulder, shocking the girl enough to make her jump up and pull out her headphones.

“You scared the hell outta me,” she screamed at him.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I just thought you might need some help.”

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

“Uh, so where you headed?” Sam said, trying to make conversation.

“No offense, but no way I’m telling you,” the girl said with a smirk.

“Why not?”

“You could be some kind of freak. I mean, you are hitchhiking.”

“Well, so are you,” Sam said. The girl laughed slightly just as a van honked its horn and pulled up beside them.

“Need a ride?” the driver said.

“Yeah,” both Sam and the girl said together.

“Just her,” the van driver said to Sam as the girl gathered her things. “I ain’t takin’ you.”

“You trust shady van guy and not me?” Sam muttered softly to the girl as she climbed into the van.

“Definitely,” the girl said with a wide smile as the van drove away, leaving Sam to stand on the road as a ride drove away from him again.

@~~>~~~

Back at Burkitsville, Dean and Emma stood in the general store showing their flyers to Harley and Stacey.

“You sure they didn’t stop for gas or something?” Dean asked.

“Nope,” Harley said as his wife shook her head. “Don’t remember ‘em. You said they were friends of yours?”

“That’s right,” Dean said just as Emily came out from the back carrying a load of boxes.

“Did the guy have a tattoo?” Emily asked.

“Yes, he did,” Dean said, looking down at the picture of Vince, where you could clearly see the tattoo on his arm, before handing it to Emily.

“You remember?” Emily said to her aunt and uncle. “They were just married.”

“You’re right,” Harley said, suddenly remembering. “They did stop for gas. Weren’t here more than ten minutes.”

“You remember anything else?” Emma asked.

“I told ‘em how to get back to the Interstate. They left town,” Harley said.

“Could you point us in that same direction?” Emma said.

“Sure,” Harley said.

@~~>~~~

Going by Harley’s directions, Dean and Emma were now driving down Orchard Road.

“Aren’t you a little worried?” Emma asked Dean.

“About what?” he replied.

“Whatever this thing is, it seems to have a likin’ for couples. Now, if you and Sam were investigating this, there wouldn’t be a problem. But as it, it’s you and me. Perfect targets.”

“Emma, after everything you and me have faced, I think we can take on whatever this is.”

“You better be right, because I don’t fancy dying in Hicksville, Indiana.”

“Burkitsville,” Dean corrected her.

“You know what I mean,” Emma said, making Dean laugh slightly. Just as the car came past the orchard, a noise emitted from the back seat.

“What the hell?” Dean muttered, pulling over the car while Emma dug through the bag in the back. She came back with the EMF meter, beeping frantically. Seems they had found whatever they were looking for, and it was in the orchard.

Getting out of the car, the pair explored further, walking through the orchard.

“You know, I think Sam was right about a couple of things back there,” Dean suddenly said.

“Things like what?” Emma said, not willing to start an argument by saying yeah, she agreed with Sam and what he said about Dean and his father.

“Like when he said I don’t know what he’s going through,” Dean said, ducking his head slightly as if embarrassed by his sudden show of emotions. “I don’t. I mean, his girlfriend was murdered in front of him. That’s gotta hurt.”

“Yeah, but you went through the same deal with your mom,” Emma said.

“I can hardly remember that,” Dean said. “Sam’s pain is still there. I mean, I’ve just got you, and you’re still here. Something I’m very thankful for by the way. I’d rather not lose you just yet.”

“You won’t,” Emma said with a smiling, leaning up to kiss his cheek. When she pulled back, she kept her hand laced through Dean’s as the pair continued walking.

A little further in, they walked past the scarecrow who, in the light of day, was securely on his post.

“Dude, you fugly,” Dean muttered to the scarecrow. Noticing a pattern on his arm, Dean took a ladder from a nearby tree and held it against the post.

“What are you doing?” Emma asked.

“Just hold the ladder,” Dean told her. With a roll of her eyes at his tone, Emma did as he requested and held the bottom of the ladder while Dean climbed up it. Moving aside the scarecrows robe, Dean looked closer at the design. It was a tattoo, and one he recognised.

Taking out the flyer from his pocket, Dean compared the tattoo on the scarecrows arm to Vince’s. it was exactly the same.

“Nice tat,” Dean said to the scarecrow before turning to Emma. “Recognise this.”

He moved aside slightly, holding the picture beside the scarecrows are for her to compare them. Emma sighed, exchanging a glance with Dean as both of them were coming to the same conclusion.

@~~>~~~

Up in the town, Emily was outside in the garage when Dean and Emma pulled up again.

“You’re back,” Emily said with a bright smile.

“Never left,” Dean replied.

“Still looking for your friends?” she asked. Dean nodded, the nameplate around Emily’s neck catching his eye. Well, at least a name would make things a little more formal and polite now.

“You mind fillin’ her up there, Emily?” Dean said. The young girl happily obliged, grabbing a pump and filling Dean’s car with gas.

“So, you grew up here?” Dean asked.

“I came here when I was thirteen,” Emily told them. “I lost my parents. Car accident. My aunt and uncle took me in.”

“They’re nice people,” Emma said with a slightly sarcastic smile.

“Everybody’s nice here,” Emily said.

“So, what, it’s the, uh, perfect little town?” Emma replied.

“Well, you know, it’s the boonies. But I love it,” Emily said with a small smile of her own. “I mean, the towns around us, people are losing their homes, their farms. But here, it’s almost like we’re blessed.”

“Hey, you been out to the orchard?” Dean asked, changing the subject after a slight nod. “You seen that scarecrow?”

“Yeah, it creeps me out,” Emily said, making Dean and Emma laugh slightly.

“Whose is it?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just always been there,” Emily said. Nodding behind Emily, Emma motioned to the red van parked in the garage.

“That your aunt and uncle’s?” she asked Emily.

“Customer,” Emily said. “Had some car troubles.”

“It’s not a couple, is it?” Emma asked. “A guy and a girl?”

“Mm hmm,” Emily said with a nod, a look of concern now crossing over Dean and Emma’s faces.

@~~>~~~

Out in a bus station, Sam had finally managed to hitch a ride and was talking to the clerk behind the desk.

“Sorry, the Sacramento bus doesn’t run again till tomorrow,” she said, checking her schedule. “Uh, 5:05 PM.”

“Tomorrow?” Sam said. “There’s got to be another way.”

“Well, there is. Buy a car,” the clerk told him. Throwing an annoyed glance her way, Sam turned his back on her and took out his phone. Scrolling through the names, he selected Dean’s, the word’s ‘Call Dean?’ flashing on the screen as well as a selection. Yes, or no? Right now, that was the pinnacle question.

Was he really gonna go running back to his brother when he ran into his first hurdle? He was determined to find his father, while Dean was determined to look the other way and do what he said. What would happen if he went running back to him now?

“Hey,” a familiar voice called out to him. Looking up from his phone, Sam saw the girl he had met on the side of the road sat against the wall.

“Hey,” Sam said, turning off his phone.

“You again.”

“What happened to your ride?”

“You were right. That guy was shady. He was all hands,” she said, Sam raising an eyebrow at her. “I cut him loose.”

Sam nodded, but wasn’t really listening. He was looking towards the buses, his mind making up and praying for a quicker way to California.

“What’s the matter?” the girl asked him.

“Just trying to get to California,” Sam said.

“No way,” the girl said, surprise in her voice.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Me too,” the girl said, getting to her feet and walking over to Sam. “You know, the next bus isn’t until tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s the problem.”

“Why? What’s in Cali that’s so important?”

“Just something I’ve been looking for. For a long time.”

“Well, then I’m sure it can wait one more day, right?” Meg said, Sam laughing lightly.

“I’m Meg,” the girl said, extending her hand to him.

“Sam,” Sam said, taking her offered hand.

@~~>~~~

In Scotty’s café in Burkitsville, the young couple whose van broke down were sat at a table, Scotty serving them each a plate of apple pie.

“We’re famous for our apples. So, you gotta try this pie,” Scotty told them.

“Oh, no,” the woman said. “It… please.”

“It’s on the house,” Scotty said as the bell on the door rang and Dean and Emma walked into the café.

“Oh, hey, Scotty,” Dean said cheerily. “Can I get a coffee, black?”

“Make that two,” Emma called after Scotty as he walked away.

“Oh, and some of that pie, too, while you’re at it,” Dean yelled as he and Emma sat at a table beside the couple.

“How ya doin’?” Dean said to the couple, who waved and smiled their way. “Just passing through?”

“Road trip,” the girl told them.

“Hm. Yeah, us too,” Emma said. The couple gave a small nod as Scotty walked over to their table to refill their drinks.

“I’m sure these people want to eat in peace,” Scotty said to Dean and Emma.

“Just a little friendly conversation,” Dean said, Scotty again walking off with an agitated look. “Oh, and those coffees, too, man. Thanks.”

“So, what brings you to town?” Emma asked the couple.

“We just stopped for gas,” the girl said. “And, uh, the guy at the gas station saved our lives.”

“Is that right?” Dean said.

“Yeah, one of our brake lines was leaking,” the guy said. “We had no idea. He was fixing it for us.”

“Nice people,” Emma said for the second time today.

“Yeah,” the guy agreed.

“So, how long till you’re up and runnin’?” Emma asked.

“Sundown,” the man answered.

“Really, to fix a brake line?” Dean asked, to which the guy nodded. “I mean, you know, I know a thing or two about cars. I could probably have you up and running in about an hour. I wouldn’t charge you anything.”

“You know, thanks a lot, but I think we’d rather have a mechanic do it,” the girl said.

“Sure. I know,” Dean said, pausing slightly and thinking just how to say the next line.

“You know, it’s just that these roads. They’re not real safe at night,” Dean continued, making the couple exchange a look.

“I’m sorry?” the girl said.

“I know it sounds strange, but, uh… you might be in danger,” Dean said.

“Look, we’re trying to eat. Okay?” the guy said.

“Yeah,” Emma said, wondering what the hell they could say now to convince them while the couple just threw worried glances their way.

“You know,” Dean began again. “My brother could give you this puppy dog look, and you’d just buy right into it.”

The bell above the café door jingled again, signalling that someone was walking in. Someone Scotty was expecting as he came out from the back.

“Thanks for coming, Sheriff,” Scotty said, Dean and Emma looking up nervously as Scotty muttered something to the Sheriff they couldn’t hear.

“Great,” Emma said softly as the Sheriff walked over to them.

“I’d like a word, please,” the Sheriff told them.

“Come on,” Dean groaned out. “We’re having a bad day already.”

“You don’t wanna make it worse,” the Sheriff said so only they could hear.

And the Sheriff’s way to make all this better was for Dean and Emma to leave town with an armed escort, turning back into town once the ‘Now Leaving Burkitsville’ sign flashed past the window.

@~~>~~~

At the bus station, passing time while he waited for his bus to California, Sam was happily sat making conversation with Meg over a few beers.

“So, what, are you on some kind of vacation or something?” Sam asked her.

“Yeah, right. It’s all sipping Cristal poolside for me,” Meg said, the both of them laughing slightly. “No. I had to get away from my family.”

“Why?”

“I love my parents. And they wanted what’s best for me. They just didn’t care if I wanted it. I was supposed to be smart. But not smart enough to scare away a husband. It’s just… because my family said so, I was supposed to sit there and do what I was told. So I just went on my own way instead.”

Sam stared at her for a second, everything she said eerily familiar. Hadn’t that been what he had done most of his life, and was doing now? He dad hadn’t wanted him to go to college, but he had, cutting all ties with his family at the time. And now he was running out on Dean because he didn’t want to have to always follow his lead now. The only problem was… family always found its way back into your life in the end.

Lost in thought, he was still staring and hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m sorry,” Meg said, seemingly misjudging the look on his face. “The things you say to people you hardly know.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I know how you feel. Remember that brother I mentioned before, that I was road-tripping with and his girlfriend?” Sam said. Meg nodded in answer. “It’s, uh, it’s kind of the same deal.”

“And that’s why you’re not riding with them anymore?” Meg said. Sam didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure how to.

Seeing his hesitation, Meg lifted her beer bottle in a toast.

“Here’s to us,” she said. “The food might be bad, and the beds might be hard. But at least we’re living our own lives. And nobody else’s.”

With a smile, Sam tapped his bottle against her, taking a swig. This girl made an awful lot of sense.

@~~>~~~

Dean and Emma, as a couple, were far too alike. Anyone could see that. And neither had much of a liking for the law, or lived their lives by rules.

Which is why, once night rolled in, the pair were on the interstate, making their way back into Burkitsville.

@~~>~~~

Already in Burkitsville, the young couple who Dean and Emma had unintentionally scared at the café were now wandering through the orchard, their car broken down on the side of the road.

“I can’t believe it. We just got the car fixed,” the girl mumbled.

“This way,” the guy said to her, walking further into the orchard. What neither noticed was the scarecrow, off his post, running quickly behind them. The girl did, however, did sense, turning round with a gasp.

“Steve?” she said, gripping onto the boyfriend’s arm when they heard another noise.

“Who’s there?” Steve yelled into the clearing. Getting nothing in return, he turned, only to come face to face with the scarecrow, slithering out from behind the trees and walking towards them. Without a second’s hesitation, the pair turned and ran into the opposite direction, almost at the clearing when something, or someone else came out in front of them. Dean and Emma.

“Get back to your car,” Emma told them. The couple didn’t move, but simple turned, watching as the scarecrow got closer to them.

“Go! Go!” Emma screamed at them again. This time they ran, leaving Dean and Emma to take care of the living, walking scarecrow.

Cocking his shotgun, Dean aimed at shot of rock salt at the scarecrow, hitting him dead in the chest. The scarecrow stumbled, but didn’t fall, still advancing on them. Dean and Emma began running backwards now, Dean still shooting at the scarecrow. Two more shots and it still did nothing.

“I really don’t think that’s workin’ Dean!” Emma screamed at him as they caught up with the couple. Dean couldn’t help but agree.

“Go! Go!” he screamed at the couple, the four now running and finally making it out of the orchard, stood just outside of the gates. Turning, Dean’s shotgun up just as a precaution, the saw the scarecrow had already vanished. It seemed they were safe outside of the orchard gates.

“What… what the hell was that?” Steve stammered out.

“Don’t ask,” Dean and Emma said in unison.

@~~>~~~

Later that same night, different area code, Sam was sat in the bus station, Meg asleep on the floor nearby. The phone call that had been edging towards happen was now in process, Sam on the phone to Emma who was sat beside Dean in the driving seat of the Impala.

“The scarecrow climbed off its cross?” Sam repeated after Emma had told him everything.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “I’m tellin’ ya. Burkitsville, Indiana. Fun Town.”

“It didn’t kill the couple, did it?” Sam asked.

“No. We can cope without you, you know,” Emma joked.

“So, something must be animating it. A spirit.”

“No, it’s more than a spirit. It’s a God. A Pagan God, anyway.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The annual cycle of its killings? And the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. Like some kind of fertility right. And you should see the locals. The way they treated this couple. Fattenin’ ‘em up like a Christmas turkey.”

“The last meal. Given to sacrificial victims.”

“Yeah, we’re thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some Pagan God.”

“So, a God possesses the scarecrow….” Sam began.

“And the scarecrow takes its sacrifice,” Emma finished. “And for another year, the crops won’t wilt, and disease won’t spread.”

“Do you know which god you’re dealing with?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, you figure out what it is, you can figure out a way to kill it.”

“I know. We’re actually on our way to a local community college. We’ve got an appointment with a professor. You know, since we don’t have our trusty sidekick geek boy to do all the research,” Emma said, making Sam laugh slightly. Beside her, Emma noticed Dean holding out his hand, motioning for the phone.

“Hold up. Dean wants to speak,” Emma said, passing the phone to Dean.

“Hey bro,” Dean said into the receiver.

“Hey,” Sam replied. “You know, if you guys are hinting you need my help, just ask.”

“We’re not hinting anything. Actually, uh… I want you to know…. I mean, don’t think….” Dean stuttered out, making Emma smile slightly, although she hid it. She knew Dean well enough to know what he was trying to say, and just how hard it was for him. Luckily, she knew Sam as well, and knew he would get the message from his brother loud and clear.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, too,” Sam said, proving Emma right and understanding completely what his brother was trying to tell him.

“Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life.”

“Are you serious?”

“You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I…. Anyway… I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy.”

“I don’t even know what to say.”

“Say you’ll take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“Call me when you find Dad,” Dean said.

“OK. Bye, Dean,” Sam said. Just like she had, Dean placed the phone back into Emma’s outstretched hand.

“Sam?” Emma said to him.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Keep in touch. Phone whenever you can. I mean it,” Emma said, making Sam laugh again. The tone in her voice, the slight joke to her words, made him realise how much he was gonna and already was missing her. Both of them.

“Of course,” Sam replied. “Bye, hun.”

“Bye Sammy,” she said as she hung up, going back to her vigil of staring blankly out of the window, missing her surrogate little brother more now she knew he was gone for good.

In the bus station, Sam stared down at the phone in his hands, thinking about the family he had just got back out on the road without him again. He was in such a daze he didn’t notice Meg wake up until she was sitting beside him.

“Who was that?” Meg asked, motioning to the phone in his hand.

“My brother and his girlfriend,” Sam answered.

“What’d they say?” she said.

“Goodbye,” he replied sadly.

@~~>~~~

At the Burkitsville community college, Dean and Emma were with the professor for their appointment.

“It’s not every day I get a research question on Pagan ideology,” the professor told them.

“Yeah, well, call it a hobby,” Dean said.

“But you said you were interested in local lore?” the professor asked.

“Mm hmm,” Dean replied.

“I’m afraid Indiana isn’t really known for its Pagan worship.”

“Well, what if it was imported? You know, like the Pilgrims brought their religion over. Wasn’t a lot of this area settled by immigrants?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Like that town near here, Burkitsville. Where are their ancestors from?”

“Uh, northern Europe, I believe, Scandinavia.”

“What could you tell us about those Pagan Gods?” Emma finally spoke up.

“Well, there are hundreds of Norse Gods and Goddesses,” the professor told her.

“We’re actually looking for one. Might live in an orchard,” Emma said. With this information, the professor took the pair into his classroom, opening a large book in front of them.

“Woods God, hm? Well, let’s see,” he said, flicking through the pages. Two pages in, he came to a picture of what looked like a scarecrow tied to a post in a farmers field.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dean said, stopping the professor’s flicking fingers. “What’s that one?”

“Oh, that’s not a woods God, per se,” the professor said.

“The V… Vanir?” Dean stumbled out, reading from the book. The professor nodded, so he carried on reading. “The Vanir were Norse gods of protection and prosperity, keeping the local settlements safe from harm. Some villages built effigies of the Vanir in their fields. Other villages practiced human sacrifice. One male, and one female. Kind of looks like a scarecrow, huh?”

“I suppose,” the professor said.

“This particular Vanir, it’s energy sprung from the sacred tree?” Dean said.

“Well, Pagans believed all sorts of things were infused with magic,” the professor told them.

“So what would happen if the sacred tree was torched?” Emma said. “You think it’d kill the god?”

“Guys, these are just legends we’re discussing,” the professor said with a small laugh.

“Oh, of course,” Emma stammered out, trying to cover up and holding out her hand for the professor to shake. “Yeah, you’re right. Listen, thank you very much.”

“Glad I could help,” the professor said, shaking Dean’s hand as well before the couple turned to leave. As they opened the class room door to leave, the first thing they saw were the sheriff and Scotty before they were knocked to the ground by the butts of their riffles, out cold before their bodies hit the floor.

@~~>~~~

Outside on the streets of Burkitsville, the rain was pouring down and the sky was covered in dark clouds for the first time in a long time. Stood in the centre of this huddled underneath umbrellas, were Harley, Stacey, Scotty and the sheriff

“You don’t understand, Harley,” Scotty was trying to reason with him again. “All of us here, it’s our responsibility to protect the town.”

“I understand. Better than all of you,” Harley said. “I’m the one that gives ‘em directions. I’m the one that sends ‘em down to the orchard.”

“Harley, please….” the sheriff began.

“We all close our doors,” Harley continued. “Look the other way. Pretend we can’t hear the screams. But this is different, this… this is murder.”

“It’s angry with us,” Stacey said, trying to make her husband understand. “Already the trees are beginning to die. Tonight’s the seventh night of the cycle. Our last chance, and it wants more this time.”

“If the boy and girl have to die, they have to die. But why does it have to be her?” Harley asked, thinking just what a sacrifice this would entitled this time.

No one could answer him. They simple looked away, the only sound in the silence that of the rain pounding against the umbrellas and the street around them.

@~~>~~~

Dean and Emma had finally woken up, but they had found themselves alone in a cellar, both with killer headaches.

Since they had woken up, they had been trying to figure an escape plan. That was until the cellar door had been opened. Looking up they saw Emily, tears streaming down her face, being held between her aunt and uncle.

“Aunt Stacy. Uncle Harley, please,” Emily begged as she was roughly dragged downstairs and stood next to Dean and Emma. “Why are you doing this?”

“For the common good,” her Aunt Stacey answered as she closed the cellar door again, leaving Dean, Emma and now Emily in the dark again.

@~~>~~~

In the bus station, the bus to California had finally arrived, but Sam wasn’t so concerned anymore. While Meg was gathering her things together, Sam was trying to call Dean for about the fifth time… and still getting no answer. It was the same story with Emma’s cell phone, which he had already tried repeatedly.

“Hey. Our bus came in,” Meg told him.

“You better catch it. I gotta go,” Sam said, hefting up his backpack.

“Go where?” Meg asked.

“Burkitsville,” Sam answered.

“Sam, wait.”

“I’ve been trying to call my brother and Emma for the last three hours. I’m just getting their voicemail.”

“Well, maybe their phones are turned off.”

“No, that’s not like them. Meg, I think they might be in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I can’t really explain right now. I’m sorry, look, I don’t want you to miss your bus.”

“But I don’t understand. You’re running back to your brother and his girlfriend? The ones you ran away from?” Meg cried out.

“I never ran from Emma,” Sam said defensively, knowing how much it broke his heart to know he might have left her in danger he could have stopped.

“Still, you’re going back to your brother. Why, because they won’t pick up their phones? Sam… come with me to California.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“They’re my family,” Sam replied, knowing now without a doubt that Dean and Emma were two of the only people in the world he would do anything to save. Risk anything to get back, which he was gonna do.

@~~>~~~

In the cellar, Dean was trying to break his way out of the door, unsuccessfully, while Emma and Emily watched from the bottom of the stairs.

“I don’t understand,” Emily said, going over everything Dean and Emma had told her again. “They’re gonna kill us?”

“Sacrifice us. Which is, I don’t know, classier, I guess?” Emma said as Dean walked back over to them.

“You really didn’t know anything about this, did you?” Dean said.

“About what? The scarecrow God?” Emily cried out in disbelief. “I can’t believe this.”

“Well, you better start believing, cause we’re gonna need your help,” Emma told her, wanting to be sensitive, but really needing to knock this girl back to reality if they were gonna get out of this.

“Okay,” Emily said softly.

“Now, we can destroy the scarecrow, but we gotta find the tree,” Dean said.

“What tree?” Emily asked.

“Maybe you can help us with that,” Dean said. “It would be really old. The locals would treat it with a lot of respect, you know, like it was sacred.”

“There was this one apple tree,” Emily said, everything starting to click slowly into place. “The immigrants brought it over with them. They call it the First Tree.”

“Is it in the orchard?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t know where,” Emily said. Before they could ask more, the cellar door swung open, Harley, Stacey, Scotty and the sheriff stood in front of them.

“It’s time,” Stacey said. All Dean, Emma and Emily could do was exchange a nervous glance, the shotguns aimed their way stopping them from making a quick escape.

@~~>~~~

Making sure their victims couldn’t escape, Harley, Stacey, Scotty and the Sheriff tied Dean, Emma and Emily to two trees in the orchard.

“How many people have you killed, Sheriff?” Dean asked him as he tied his hands together. “How much blood is on your hands?”

“We don’t kill them,” the Sheriff answered.

“No, but you sure cover up after,” Emma said as she was tied beside Dean, their hands locked together. “I mean, how many cars have you hidden, clothes have you buried?”

The Sheriff had no answer for them this time. He just walked away, letting Harley and Stacey finish tying Emily to the other tree.

“Uncle Harley, please,” Emily sobbed.

“I am so sorry, Em,” Harley told her. “I wish it wasn’t you.”

“Try to understand. It’s our responsibility,” Stacey said. “And there’s just no other choice. There’s nobody else but you.”

“I’m your family,” Emily told her.

“Sweetheart, that’s what sacrifice means. Giving up something you love for the greater good,” Stacey said, tears now springing to her eyes. “The town needs to be safe. The good of the many outweighs the good of the one.”

With that final statement, the four walked away from their sacrifices.

“I hope your apple pie is freakin’ worth it!” Dean screamed after them.

“So, what’s the plan?” Emily asked, calming down a little.

“I’m workin’ on it,” Dean said.

However, hours later, once darkness had fallen, they were still tied in the same positions.

“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Emily said.

“I’m workin’ on it,” Dean said yet again.

“You can stop saying that anytime soon,” Emma grated out from beside him.

“Can you see?” Dean asked Emily, ignoring Emma’s comment.

“What?” Emily asked.

“Is he moving yet?” Dean asked.

“I can’t see,” Emily said craning her neck. That statement was soon questioned as she did see something. A shadow moving their way through the trees. “Oh my God. Oh my God!” Emily sobbed out. Hearing the fear and panic in her voice, Dean and Emma pulled harder on their ropes, trying to free themselves to no avail. It didn’t matter though, because the shadow was now standing beside them.

And it was Sam.

“Dean? Emma?” he said, the pair breathing a heavy sigh of relief.

“Oh! Oh, I take everything back I said. I’m so happy to see you,” Dean said as Sam began to untie them. “Come on.”

“How’d you get here?” Emma asked, not that it really mattered how right now.

“I, uh…. I stole a car,” Sam answered almost nervously.

“Ha ha! That’s my boy!” Dean said as Sam finished untying them. “And keep an eye on that scarecrow. He could come alive any minute.”

“What scarecrow?” Sam said. Now free from their ties, Dean and Emma jumped to their feet to see the scarecrow post already empty. Too late.

Making quick work of the ropes round Emily’s wrist, the four now started running quickly through the orchard, eager to get out of here before the scarecrow came jumping out of the shadows.

“Alright, now, this sacred tree you’re talking about….” Sam started.

“It’s the source of its power,” Emma explained.

“So let’s find it and burn it,” Sam said.

“Nah, in the morning,” Dean said. “Let’s just shag ass before Leather Face catches up.”

But they didn’t get too far as they ran into a clearing and came face to face with townspeople and shotguns aimed their way.

“This way,” Dean said, turning the group in the opposite direction. But it was no use. They were surrounded from all angles.

“Please. Let us go,” Emily begged of her aunt and uncle.

“It’ll be over quickly, I promise,” Harley told her.

“Please,” Emily continued to beg.

“Emily, you have to let him take you. You have to….”

Harley’s words were quickly cut off as the elusive scarecrow appeared behind him, piercing his sickle through his stomach while at the same time capturing a screaming Stacey and dragging them away. Emily herself screamed, turning and running into the nearest pair of arms, which happened to be Dean’s.

Not wanting to be the next victims, the rest of the townspeople ran, fleeing in fright.

“Come on, let’s go,” Dean said, the four of the running for the exit now they could. Turning once they were out of the gates, the group found nothing but empty space and silence. The scarecrow, along with Harley and Stacey, was long gone.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, Sam, Dean, Emma and Emily were ready to get this over and done with for good. With gasoline and a lighter, they stood in front of the sacred tree Emily had led them to. While Sam poured gasoline over the trees surface, Emma picked up a long branch from the floor, Dean lighting the end.

“Let me,” Emily said, reaching out to take the branch from Emma.

“You know, the whole town’s gonna die,” Emma told her.

“Good,” Emily said, throwing the lit branch onto the tree, standing back with the trio as the tree, as well as the towns future, burnt to the ground, leaving nothing but ashes.

@~~>~~~

With no home and no family left, Emily was now prepared to make it on her own. Climbing onto a bus for Boston, Emily turned one last time, looking out of the window at Sam, Dean and Emma watching her leave. Taking her seat on the bus as it drove off, Emily smiled a thankful smile at Dean and Emma, a small wave from both of them given in return being the last thing she saw.

“Think she’s gonna be alright?” Sam asked.

“I hope so,” Dean replied.

“And the rest of the townspeople, they’ll just get away with it?” Sam said.

“Well, what’ll happen to the town will have to be punishment enough,” Emma told him.

“So, can I drop you off somewhere?” Dean asked Sam as they walked back towards the car.

“No, I think you’re stuck with me,” Sam said as they stopped beside the car. The next thing he knew, Emma had jumped into his arms, a wide smile plastered across her face as she hugged him tightly.

“What made you change your mind?” Dean asked.

“I didn’t. I still wanna find Dad. And you’re still a pain in the ass,” Sam said, dropping Emma to her feet again as Dean nodded. “But, Jess and Mom… they’re both gone. Dad is God knows where. Us three. We’re all that’s left. So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together.”

For a second, there was a pause between the three, Dean staring up at Sam.

“Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful,” he replied sarcastically, placing his hand against Sam’s shoulder. Sam just pushed him away, the three laughing as they starting climbing back into the car.

“You should be kissing my ass,” Sam said. “You were dead meat, dude.”

“Yeah, right. I had a plan, I’d have gotten out,” Dean said.

“Right. That would be what, the tenth time you’ve said ‘I had a plan’?” Emma said smirking at Dean as, with a small laugh, Sam followed the two into the car, things how they should be again.

@~~>~~~

Out on the highway, Meg had managed to peg a ride with another shady van driver who was looking her up and down in her seat, leering at her.

“So, where to, pretty lady?” the van driver asked.

“How about you pull over?” Meg answered.

“Okay. That works,” the van driver said with a smug smile as he pulled over to the side of the road. Once the van had come to a stop, Meg reached inside her bag, pulling out a small silver bowl.

“What’s that?” he asked her.

“I’ve got to make a call,” she told him.

“I’ve got a cell phone you could use,” the driver said.

“It’s not that kind of call,” she told him. With almost inhuman speed, Meg whipped a knife out from the bowl, slicing it across the drivers throat and letting his blood pour out into the bowl she held beneath him. “Thanks for the ride,” she muttered to him as his life quickly drained away with each drop of blood he lost. Pulling the bowl back into her lap, Meg stirred her finger round in the blood.

“Tire quiero patem me a di,” she spoke softly, the blood now swirling without the aid of her finger as a silver orb appeared in the centre.

“It makes no sense,” Meg spoke into the bowl. “I could’ve stopped Sam. Hell, I could’ve taken all three of them. Why let them go?”

She listened intently, a voice that only she could hear talking back to her.

“Yes,” she said, pausing to listen again. “Yes.”

Again she listened, her voice softening slightly as she spoke one last time.

“Yes, Father.”


	12. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> While battling a demon, Dean is electrocuted, resulting in permanent damage to his heart and leaving him with only a couple of months to live. Sam and Emma must come up with a way to save him. Turning to a faith healer, Dean is saved. The group soon find that the faith healers wife has made a demonic pact when trying to save her husbands life, and another life is taken by the Grim Reaper when the faith healer performs a ‘miracle.’

On their latest hunt, Sam, Dean and Emma now find themselves in front of an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Inside was a monster, a rawhead, who had taken two young children. And it was their job to get them back.

Taking out the demon the only way they knew how, Dean pulled three tasers out of the trunk.

“What do you got those amped up to?” Sam asked as Dean handed one each to him and Emma.

“A hundred thousand volts,” Dean answered.

“Damn,” Emma said.

“Yeah, I want this rawhead extra frickin’ crispy. And remember, you only get one shot with these things. So make it count,” Dean told them as they made their way into the house.

Walking cautiously down the stairs, guns and flashlight high in front of them, a noise knocked all their attention to a small cupboard.

“On three,” Dean whispered to the other two. “One. Two. Three.”

Pulling the cupboard roughly open, the trio came face to face with two very scared kids, cowering in the tight space

“Is it still here?” Sam asked, to which the children merely nodded, unable to speak through fear.

“Ok. Grab your sister’s hand,” Emma said softly to the little boy. “Come on, we gotta get you out of here. Let’s go, let’s go.”

Gently pushing the children in front of them, Sam, Dean and Emma led them towards the stairs.

“Alright, go!” Emma called to them, watching as the pair starting to flee up the stairs. Sam, who wasn’t too far behind them, didn’t get any closer to the exit himself as a hand snaked through the railing of the stairs, grabbing his leg and dragging him back down.

“Sam!” Emma screamed out as she moved to the other side of the staircase, coming face to face with the rawhead and shooting immediately. The monster, however, had seen it coming and ducked out of the way, Emma’s one and only shot missing.

“Sam, get ‘em outta here!” Dean yelled, motioning up to the kids.

“You take this!” Sam called back, throwing his own taser down, which Emma easily caught, dropping her useless one. With Sam getting the kids safely outside, Dean and Emma were left to take down this monster.

“Come on,” he called into the basement, his flashlight flicking over box after box after… demon!

As his flashlight beam illuminated the creature’s features, Dean aimed his gun, but not quick enough. Before Dean could get a shot off, the demon flew at him, flinging him across the room where he landed in a puddle of water in the corner.

Coming up the other side, Emma took her own shot at the demon again. The demon, however, was already charging at her. Her aim on a fast moving object not perfect, Emma’s second shot missed, the creature knocking her aside as it made it’s way to Dean. She was merely a distraction.

Seeing the creature loam over him, Dean scrambled for the only working gun, taking aim at the creature. But he failed to see what Emma did.

The creature was standing in the same puddle of water Dean was lay in.

“Dean, no!” Emma screamed to him, but it was too late. Dean had taken his shot and hit, electrocuting the demon. The high current flowed through the creature, into the puddle… and into Dean.

While the creature collapsed to the floor, dead, Dean twitched and shuddered against the heavy flow of electricity working it’s way through his body.

“Dean!!” Emma screamed out again, running across the room as her boyfriend fell into unconsciousness.

The kids safe upstairs, Sam chose now to run back into the basement, seeing the sight before him. Dean unconscious in a puddle of water with Emma at his, barely able to control her tears.

“Dean!” Sam cried out as he dropped to the floor by their side. “Dean, hey. Hey.”

Sam shook his brother, trying to bring him to, but it wasn’t working.

“What happened?” Sam asked a now near hysterical Emma.

“The rawhead,” Emma sobbed out through her shaking and tears. “Dean shot it with the taser but it backfired, travelled through the water. I tried to stop him but….”

“Emma, its okay,” Sam said softly, trying to calm her down some. “Calm down. We just gotta get him to a hospital.”

All Emma could do was nod, wipe at her tears, and hope to God Sam was right.

@~~>~~~

After piling Dean into the car and breaking every known speed limit, Sam and Emma had taken Dean to the nearest hospital. And, having to take care of the frightened children as well, a shaken Emma was stood in front of two police officers, her arms wrapped tight round herself, while Sam stood at the reception desk, sorting out Dean’s admittance.

“Sir, I’m so sorry to ask. There doesn’t seem to be any insurance on file,” the receptionist told him.

“Right. Uh, ok,” Sam said distractedly, taking a card from his wallet and handing it to her.

“Okay, Mr. Burkovitz,” the receptionist said with a smile. Sam tried his best to smile in response as he moved away from her, standing by Emma and the officer. Seeing the way Emma was stood, Sam slipped his arm round her comfortingly, pulling her into his side.

“Look, we can finish this up later,” the officer said, like Sam, obviously seeing the distraught state Emma was in.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Sam said, wanting to get through the story as quick as possible. “We were just taking a shortcut through the neighbourhood. And, um, the windows were rolled down, we heard some screaming. We drove past the house, and we stopped. Ran in.”

“And you found the kids in the basement?” the officer asked.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

“Well, thank God you did,” the officer said. Behind him, Sam noticed Dean’s doctor making his way towards them.

“Excuse me,” Sam said to the officers.

“Sure. Thanks for your help,” the officer said as Sam led Emma over to the doctor.

“Hey, Doc. Is he….” Sam said.

“He’s resting,” the doctor finished for him

“And?” Sam said, urging him to continue.

“The electrocution triggered a heart attack,” the doctor said. “Pretty massive, I’m afraid. His heart… it’s damaged.”

“How damaged?” Sam asked.

“We’ve done all we can,” the doctor said, his tone showing pure sympathy for them. “We can try and keep him comfortable at this point. But, I’d give him a couple weeks, at most, maybe a month.”

“No, no,” Emma muttered, uttering her first words since they had entered the hospital, her tears now flowing freely as she buried herself against Sam’s chest, his arms wrapping round her.

“There’s… there’s gotta be something you can do,” Sam said, pushing back his own tears. “Some kind of treatment.”

“We can’t work miracles. I really am sorry,” the doctor said, leaving the two stood in the hallway, Emma sobbing in his arms and letting her tears flow freely while Sam adamantly kept his trapped behind his eyes. This time, it was his turn to be the strong brother, if not for the sake of his own sanity.

@~~>~~~

In his own private hospital room, Dean was sat with the remote in hand, flicking through the channels of daytime TV. When Sam and Emma came in, and he looked up at him, Sam’s battle against tears almost ended. The guy lay in that bed did not look like his brother. His wasn’t strong and full of life anymore, but the total opposite. He was pale and drawn, dark circles under his eyes. Emma’s strangled sob told Sam the same thoughts were running through her head. She had calmed down slightly, stopped crying, but Sam knew she could start again any minute. And he didn’t blame her.

“Have you ever actually watched daytime TV?” Dean said once they entered, trying to lighten the mood as always. “It’s terrible.”

“We talked to your doctor,” Sam said with a sigh.

“That fabric softener teddy bear. Oh, I’m gonna hunt that little bitch down,” Dean continued, adamantly ignoring Sam.

“Dean,” Sam said again, making sure he couldn’t ignore him anymore as he looked up at them.

“Yeah,” Dean said, turning off the TV. “Alright, well, looks like you guys are gonna leave town without me.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam said. “We’re not gonna leave you here.

“Hey, you guys better take care of that car,” Dean continued in his joke filled manner. “Or, I swear, I’ll haunt your asses.”

“I don’t think that’s funny,” Emma said, her battle with tears getting harder with each word Dean said, or each stupid joke he made at his own expensive, when all Emma wanted was his reassurance. For him to tell her this was nothing, that he was gonna be fine and they would be on the road as a group again in no time.

“Oh, come on, it’s a little funny,” Dean told her, a thick silence now hanging in the air between them.

“Look, what can I say?” Dean continued, the jokes going out of the window at the looks on his brother and girlfriend’s faces. “It’s a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That’s it, end of story.”

“Don’t talk like that, alright?” Sam said. “We still have options.”

“What options?” Dean said, beginning to get a little angry with the two for not understanding. “Yeah, burial or cremation.”

“Great,” Emma said, the new tears she had been so strongly pushing aside springing back to the front. “You know that’s…. That’s just great, Dean.”

Not needing Dean to see her cry right now, Emma ran from the room before the sobbing took over her body, Sam and Dean’s eyes on her the whole time. Dean had seen the look in her eyes when she had ran, even though she tried to hide it from him. And the minute he had, he regretted his words.

“She took the words right out of my mouth,” Sam said, turning back to his brother, his own voice beginning to take on a hint of anger now. Dean continued to stare at the door for a second longer as if staring that intently would someone make Emma walk back through it without those horrible tears he had caused behind her eyes.

“Look,” Dean said, his voice a little softer now. “I know it’s not easy. But I’m gonna die. And you guys can’t stop it.”

“Watch us,” Sam said, sweeping out of the door after Emma. And if he hadn’t stopped abruptly, he probably would have tripped over her. She was sat on the floor, her head in her knees to capture the tears.

“Emma?” he said softly, making her look up at him with the tears still streaming down her face.

“How can he be so blatant about it Sam?” she said to him. “He’s dying. And he’s right. What can we do to save him?”

Watching her break gently again, Sam sat on the floor beside her, pulling her closer to him and letting her cry in his arms again.

“I’ll find a way to save him. I promise,” Sam whispered to her after a minute, adamant that he would do it. He pulled away slightly, making Emma look up at him. “I’m going back to the motel. What do you want to do?”

“I wanna stay here with him,” she said softly.

“Okay,” Sam said, pressing a gentle kiss on his best friend’s forehead, the only woman in the world both brothers would always care about and do practically anything for. With a comforting smile her way, Sam left the hospital, leaving Emma in exactly the same position.

For a moment, Emma stayed where she was. What exactly was she gonna do if she walked back in that room? She could go in there and they could scream at each other, get into one of their typical arguments, and she’d probably end up killing him a month before his time. Or she could break down, end up sobbing uncontrollably in his arms and make him promise never to leave her, no matter what. Right now, she wasn’t sure which one would be worst.

One of the reasons she wasn’t jumping up to go back in that room with him, alone, was because she couldn’t see him like that again. This was Dean Winchester, the guy despite everything that had happened in his family, had always stood strong. He had always been there for Emma, ready to save her life or pick her up when she was down. And now, in a month’s time, Emma wasn’t gonna have that anymore. He’d be gone, and she honestly didn’t know just how well she’d cope without him by her side.

Wiping at the stray tears that had leaked from her eyes, Emma stood, staring at the door that now separated her and Dean. With a deep sigh, Emma pushed it open, Dean looking up at her as she just stood in the doorway. And the eyes that stared back at her broke Emma inside even more. They weren’t Dean anymore. Eyes that usually held such light and laughter, eyes that gave her strength, were now dark and weary, holding no strength of their own.

“You gonna come in or what?” Dean finally said into the silence. Slowly, Emma did just that, gently lowering herself onto the edge of the bed beside Dean. “I’m sorry,” Dean said so quietly, Emma almost didn’t hear him.

“For what?” she asked.

“Everything that’s happened,” Dean said. “It’s all gotta be my fault somehow.”

“The only thing you have to apologise for is the way you’re talking about all this,” Emma told him.

“What, you mean being truthful?”

“No, I mean being so blatant. Not caring how it sounds to me and Sam.”

“What do you mean, Sam? He didn’t say a thing.”

“And he won’t. He wants to be brave in front of his big brother. He’s not gonna say how much this scares him. How much this scares both of us. You need to think how this is for me and Sam.”

“Oh, well I’m sorry if I didn’t stop to consider how you guys felt in all this!” Dean said, the anger hitting his voice again.

“There you go again,” Emma said, anger now taking over her fears and tears. “Not thinking before you open that big mouth of yours.”

“I’m not really bothered about that right now Emma,” Dean told her. “After all, I’m gonna be six feet under in a month.”

“Don’t,” Emma screamed, jumping off the bed and turning her back on him. “Just stop it! Please Dean.”

Her shoulders shaking slightly told Dean that once again, tears were streaking down Emma’s cheeks. And just the amount of times she had been crying over him told Dean just how much she was hurting over this. For the second time, he regretted the words that had moments ago left his mouth.

“Emma,” Dean said, making her turn to him. He was sat up, his arms spread out to her. “Come here.”

Needing more than anything the overwhelming comfort she always got from Dean, Emma crossed the room in one bound and buried herself in his arms, crying against his chest.

“I love you, Dean,” Emma mumbled into his chest. “I don’t want you to die.”

Dean said nothing. He just wrapped his arms tighter round Emma, trying to comfort her. He knew how much this must have been getting to Sam and Emma, he had seen it on their faces. But what neither of them knew was just how tough it was for him. He didn’t want to die, and the idea that he might was actually scaring him. But Dean didn’t get scared. He had to stay strong for Sam and Emma. So what did he do when he was scared? He made jokes, he laughed it off. He didn’t think how much this was hurting the others around him.

While his girl cried in his arms, Dean couldn’t stop the single tear that slid down his face.

@~~>~~~

Back in the silence of the empty motel room, Sam sat on his bed as always surrounded by research. But today was a different kind of research. Today he was surrounded by books and leaflets on heart care. But, Sam being Sam and what they did, it wasn’t doctors that were solving his problems. It was his father’s journal.

Speaking of his father, Sam thought now was the time to try and get in touch with him, tell him what was wrong with his son. Even if he knew he’d never get an answer.

“This is John Winchester,” his father’s voicemail spoke to him, proving Sam right. “I can’t be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 866-907-3235. He can help.”

As the beep sounded in his ear, Sam for about the third time today tried to push back his tears as he started telling his dad just what this call was about.

“Hey, Dad. It’s Sam,” Sam began, his voice already staring to break as his pent up emotions got on top of him.” Uh… you probably won’t even get this, but, uh…. It’s Dean. He’s sick, and uh… the doctors say there’s nothing they can do. Um… but, uh, they don’t know the things we know, right? So, don’t worry, cause, uh… I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get him better. Alright… just wanted you to know.”

Hanging up, Sam tossed the phone onto the bed across from him. Now he was alone, he could fell the tears beginning to spring to the front of his eyes. Emma had been at the hospital since Sam had left, and he didn’t figure she’d be coming back anytime soon. So now was the time when he could really let his emotions take over.

Since he had left the hospital, he had been trying his hardest not to think of Dean and just what would happen if they didn’t fix this. Because the last thing that could happen right now is that he could lose his brother. He had just found him again, started to be a proper family with him and Emma, and now they knew for sure their father was alive, even if they had no idea where he was. Now was the worst possible time for all this to go wrong.

A knock on the door meant his emotions had to take a back seat again. The only person that could be was Emma, and he had to be strong for her sake right now. He knew this was just as tough on her, maybe worse. Sam knew just how much she loved Dean.

Opening the door, he did come face to face with Emma, only she wasn’t alone. She had Dean leaning against her side, looking even worse, if that was possible.

“He wouldn’t listen to me,” Emma said as if in answer.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sam asked his brother.

“I checked myself out,” Dean said, stepping past Sam and into the motel room.

“What, are you crazy?” Sam said to him.

“Well, I’m not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren’t even hot,” Dean said with a slight shrug.

“I would smack you for that, but you look too ill,” Emma told him, making Sam laugh as he closed the door behind them.

“You know, this whole ‘I-Laugh-In-The-Face-Of-Death’ thing?” Sam told his brother. “It’s crap. I can see right through it.”

“Yeah, whatever, dude,” Dean said as Emma helped her weakened boyfriend into a nearby chair. “Have you even slept? You look worse than me.”

“I’ve been scouring the Internet for the last three days,” Sam told him. “Calling every contact in Dad’s journal.”

“For what?” Dean asked.

“For a way to help you. One of Dad’s friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist.”

“You’re not gonna let me die in peace, are you?”

“I’m not gonna let you die, period. We’re going.”

Dean didn’t give Sam an answer. Instead, he turned to Emma, who was staring at him, smiling almost pleadingly. She wanted him to do this, didn’t want to lose him.

And that was the only reason he gave in.

@~~>~~~

In Nebraska, Sam’s idea of a specialist was a tent with the words ‘The Church of Roy LeGrange Faith Healer. Witness The Miracle’, written across the top and a group of very sick looking people making their way inside.

Pulling their car up outside, Sam and Emma were out first, stepping round the car to help Dean out of the car with a slight grunt of pain.

“I got it,” Dean said, shrugging away from Sam and Emma’s hands. “Man, you are a lying bastard. Thought you said we were going to see a doctor.”

“I believe I said a specialist,” Sam half-joked. “Look, Dean, this guy’s supposed to be the real deal.”

“I can’t believe you brought me here to see some guy who heals people out of a tent,” Dean said.

“Reverend LeGrange is a great man,” an elderly woman with an eavesdropping ear said as she past them.

“Yeah, that’s nice,” Dean grated out. Still walking towards the tent, Sam, Dean and Emma past another member of the crowd, this guy with a very different opinion to the old woman.

“I have a right to protest,” the man called out. “This man is a fraud. And he’s bilking all these people out of their hard-earned money.”

“Sir, this is a place of worship,” a sheriff said as he and his partner walked the man away from the tent. “Let’s go. Move it.”

“I take it he’s not part of the flock,” Dean said.

“When people see something they can’t explain, there’s controversy,” Sam said.

“I mean, come on, Sam, a faith healer?” Dean grated out to his brother.

“Maybe it’s time to have a little faith, Dean,” Emma said, adding her opinion.

“You know what I’ve got faith in?” Dean told the pair. “Reality. Knowing what’s really going on.”

“How can you be a sceptic? With the things we see everyday?” Sam asked.

“Exactly,” Dean said, as if Sam was making his point for him instead of against him. “We see them, we know they’re real.”

“But if you know evil’s out there, how can you not believe good’s out there, too?” Emma said.

“Because I’ve seen what evil does to good people,” Dean told them.

“Maybe God works in mysterious ways,” another crowd member said, turning to them. This one was a pretty young blonde woman.

“Maybe he does,” Dean said. “I think you just turned me around on the subject.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes as the girl smiled and Dean extended his hand to her.

“I’m Dean. This is Sam and Emma.”

“Layla,” the young girl said, taking Dean’s offered hand. “So, if you’re not a believer, then why are you here?”

“Well, apparently these two here believe enough for the lot of us,” Dean told her.

“Again with the need to smack, Dean,” Emma said as Layla’s mother walked up to her daughter.

“Come on, Layla. It’s about to start,” she said, guiding her daughter away with a wave goodbye.

“Well, I bet you she can work in some mysterious ways,” Dean joked. Sam just smiled slightly, knowing his brother, while Emma glared and poked him gently in the arm, guiding him towards the tent as Mrs Rourke had with Layla.

Inside the tent there was already a large group of people sat waiting for the service to begin, while Dean’s eyes immediately went to the security camera’s in the corners.

“Yeah, peace, love, and trust all over,” Dean said, pointing out the camera’s to Sam and Emma. Dean carried on walking further into the tent, heading towards a seat in the back.

“Come on,” Sam said, pushing Dean further towards the front.

“What are you doing? Let’s sit here,” Dean said.

“We’re sitting up front,” Sam told him.

“What? Why?”

“Come on.”

“Oh, come on, guys.” But despite is protests, Dean was still led towards the front, Sam and Emma trying to help him.

“You alright?” Emma asked.

“This is ridiculous. I’m good, get off me,” Dean said, pushing away from the pair as they came to three seats close to the front behind Layla and her mother.

“Perfect,” Sam said of the seats.

“Yeah, perfect,” Dean said with next to no emotion.

“You take the aisle,” Sam told him, the three sitting in their seats just as their host, Roy LeGrange, walked onto stage, dark glasses over his blind eyes.

“Each morning, my wife, Sue Ann, reads me the news. Never seems good, does it?” Roy called out to the very agreeable crowd. “Seems like there’s always someone committing some immoral, unspeakable act.”

As he spoke, Sam looked up at the table behind Roy, noticing the items on it. It was filled with crosses and religious items, one in particular catching his attention. It was a cross with a smaller one on top of it, the smaller one inside a circle.

“But, I say to you, God is watching. God rewards the good, and He punishes the corrupt,” Roy continued to the crowd who were agreeing with and believing his every word. “Who does the healing here, friends? The Lord who guides me in choosing who to heal by helping me see into people’s hearts.”

“Yeah, or into their wallets,” Dean muttered quietly just to Sam and Emma.

“You think so, young man?” Roy said to Dean, the rest of the church going silent.

“Sorry,” Dean said, embarrassed.

“No, no. Don’t be. Just watch what you say around a blind man, we’ve got real sharp ears,” Roy said, making his followers laugh. “What’s your name, son?”

“Dean,” Dean answered after a slight hesitation.

“Dean. I want… I want you to come up here with me,” Roy said, his wife Sue Ann getting onto the stage to welcome Dean up while the crowd cheered in excitement, Layla and her mother the only ones not joining in with the cheers but looking upset at the news.

“No, that’s ok,” Dean yelled over the noise.

“What are you doing?” Emma said to him.

“You’ve come here to be healed, haven’t you?” Roy said.

“Well, yeah, but….” Dean began, his voice beginning to get drowned out by the cheers of the crowd. “No, maybe you should just pick someone else.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t pick you, Dean,” Roy said over the claps. “The Lord did.”

“Get up there!” Sam said, pushing a reluctant and uncomfortable looking Dean up to the stage.

“You ready?” Roy asked him.

“Look, no disrespect, but I’m not exactly a believer,” Dean said to Roy.

“You will be, son. You will be,” Roy said before turning to the crowd. “Pray with me, friends.”

The crowd lifted their hands into the air, following Roy’s lead. Roy reached out his hand feeling for Dean’s shoulder, Dean looking just as nervous as the anxious Sam and Emma in the crowd.

“Alright, now. Alright, now,” Roy said, moving his hand to Dean’s forehead as he worked his healing magic.

The crowd, which of course included Sam and Emma, watched as Dean began to look weak and dizzy, his eyes closes and his legs falling from under him as he fell to his knees. Roy kept his hand against Dean’s forehead, almost guiding him down as he collapsed to the floor. The crowd cheered and clapped, seeing something Sam and Emma weren’t as they became scared.

“Dean!” Emma called out, her and Sam racing to the stage. Emma knelt beside Dean, shaking him slightly until he woke with a heavy gasp. “Say something,” Emma said to him.

But Dean remained silent, in shock over what had just happened. His blurry vision focusing slowly, Dean’s eyes fell on someone new in the room. An old man, his face grey and dead and his hair white, was stood behind Roy dressed in a suit. His eyes landed on Dean before vanishing, leaving Dean even more shocked.

@~~>~~~

Back at the dreaded hospital for a second time, Dean now looked a little different. He was sat up on an examination table, looking as well as he always did, while Sam and Emma stood beside him.

“So, you really feel okay?” Emma asked almost expectantly.

“I feel fine, Emma,” Dean assured her as the nurse walked back into the room, Dean’s papers in her hand.

“Well, according to all your tests, there’s nothing wrong with your heart. No sign there ever was,” the nurse said, getting two totally different reactions from the people in front of her. Sam and Emma seemed almost ecstatic, happy to have their brother and boyfriend back, while Dean simply looked curious, almost worried about the news.

“Not that a man your age should be having heart trouble,” the nurse continued. “But still, it’s strange it does happen.”

“What do you mean, strange?” Dean asked.

“Well, just yesterday, a young guy like you, twenty-seven, athletic. Out of nowhere, heart attack,” the nurse said, making Dean look concerned again.

“Thanks, Doc,” he said.

“Oh, no problem,” she said with a slight smile as she left.

“That’s odd,” Dean said to Sam and Emma once she was gone.

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Sam suggested. “People’s hearts give out all the time, man.”

“No, they don’t,” Dean argued back.

“Look, Dean, do we really have to look this one in the mouth?” Emma said hopefully. “Why can’t we just be thankful that the guy saved your life and move on?”

“Because I can’t shake this feeling, that’s why,” Dean said.

“What feeling?” Emma asked.

“When I was healed, I just… I felt wrong,” Dean said. “I felt cold. And for a second, I saw someone. This, uh, this old man. And I’m telling you, it was a spirit.”

“But if there was something there, Dean, I think I would’ve seen it, too,” Sam said. “I mean, I’ve been seeing an awful lot of things lately.”

“Well, excuse me, psychic wonder,” Dean said, his voice only half joking. “But you’re just gonna need a little faith on this one. Sam, I’ve been hunting long enough to trust a feeling like this.”

At Dean’s words, Sam and Emma exchanged a look. Dean was fine now, not gonna die, and they just wanted to get out of this place. The two of them were almost over the moon that Dean wasn’t gonna die, absolutely ready to take all this on faith, where as Dean was just trying to rationalise everything. Almost as if he was looking for reasons to get out of this, to be a month away from death again.

“Yeah, alright,” Sam said, him and Emma giving in to Dean’s wishes. “So, what do you wanna do?”

“I want you to go check out the heart attack guy. I’m gonna visit the reverend,” Dean told them.

@~~>~~~

Going their separate ways for their separate jobs, Emma had not gone with Sam like Dean had originally suggested. Instead she was now sat with him in Reverend Roy LeGrange’s house.

“I feel great,” Dean told the reverend. “Just trying to, you know, make sense of what happened.”

“A miracle is what happened,” Sue Ann said from beside her husband. “Well, miracles come so often around Roy.”

“When did they start? The miracles,” Emma asked Roy.

“Woke up one morning, stone blind,” Roy began to tell them. “Doctors figured out I had cancer. Told me I had maybe a month. So, uh, we prayed for a miracle. Now, I was weak, but I told Sue Ann, ‘You just keep right on praying’. I went into a coma. Doctors said I wouldn’t wake up, but I did. And the cancer was gone.”

Ending his story, Roy removed his sunglasses to reveal his white, blind eyes.

“If it wasn’t for these eyes, no one would believe I’d ever had it,” Roy said.

“And suddenly you could heal people,” Emma added.

“I discovered it afterward, yes,” Roy said. “God’s blessed me in many ways.”

“And his flock just swelled overnight,” Sue Ann said proudly. “And this is just the beginning.”

“Can I ask you one last question?” Dean said.

“Of course you can,” Roy answered in his cheerful tone.

“Why?” Dean asked. “Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me?”

“Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me,” Roy said. “I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest.”

“What did you see in my heart?” Dean asked.

“A young man with an important purpose,” Roy said. “A job to do. And it isn’t finished.”

Emma smiled at Roy’s words, seeing just how true they actually were. Dean on the other hand, couldn’t see. Roy’s words simply surprised, even confused him further.

@~~>~~~

Doing his end of the job, Sam was at the local gym talking to a friend of Marshall Hall, the heart attack victim.

“I’m telling you, he seemed healthy,” the man told him. “Swam every day, didn’t smoke. So, a heart attack just kind of seemed, well, bizarre.”

“And you said he was running, right before he collapsed?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, yeah, he was freaking out. He said that something was, uh, was after him.”

“Did he say what?”

“Well, thin air is what. I mean, it wasn’t anything.”

Sam thought on his words for a moment, taking them in, and thinking about just what Dean had said to. The invisible man on the stage only he seemed able to see.

“Alright, thanks,” Sam said, turning to leave before he noticed a clock on the wall above him, the hands still. “Hey, buddy? Your, uh, your clock’s busted.”

“Oh, yeah, we, uh, can’t get it workin’,” the man said. “Just froze at 4:17.”

“Is that the same time Marshall died?” Sam guessed.

“How’d you know?” the guy asked. Sam didn’t answer. He just stored this piece of information away with all the others, new ideas coming to his mind.

@~~>~~~

Back at Reverend LeGrange’s house, Dean and Emma were leaving just as Layla and her mother were heading towards the house.

“Dean, Emma, hey,” Layla greeted with a sweet smile.

“Hey,” Dean replied.

“How you feeling?” Layla asked.

“I feel good. Cured, I guess,” Dean answered. “What are you doing here?”

“You know, my mom, she wanted to talk to the reverend,” Layla said as Sue Ann came outside.

“Layla?” she greeted.

“Yes, I’m here again,” Layla said with another smile.

“Well, I’m sorry, but Roy is resting, and he won’t be seeing anyone else right now,” Sue Ann said.

“Sue Ann, please,” Mrs Rourke almost begged. “This is our sixth time, he’s got to see us.”

“Roy is well aware of Layla’s situation,” Sue Ann told her. “And he very much wants to help just as soon as the Lord allows. Have faith, Mrs. Rourke.”

With these final words, Sue Ann walked back inside the house. Alone, Mrs Rourke now turned her attention on Dean, visibly upset.

“Why are you still even here?” Mrs Rourke asked him, anger also in her voice. “You got what you wanted.”

“Mom. Stop,” Layla said.

“No, Layla, this is too much,” Mrs Rourke said. “We’ve been to every single service. If Roy would stop choosing these strangers over you. Strangers who don’t even believe. I just can’t pray any harder.”

“Layla, what’s wrong?” Emma asked her.

“I have this thing….” Layla said slowly, her words trailing off.

“It’s a brain tumor,” Mrs Rourke continued for her. “It’s inoperable. In six months, the doctors say....”

As her mothers words trailed off, Layla put her hand against her shoulder, comforting her mother.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said softly.

“It’s okay,” Layla said.

“No. It isn’t,” Mrs Rourke said before turning to Dean. “Why do you deserve to live more than my daughter?”

Mrs Rourke walked away, her daughter following her with tears in her eyes. Dean watched after them for a moment, thinking the exact same thing Mrs Rourke had just put out in the open.

Still distracted thinking about it, Dean walked back towards the car, Emma behind him. While Emma pulled her door open, Dean paused slightly, staring at nothing.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” Emma asked him.

“I’m fine,” Dean said, clearly covering something.

“Yeah, right,” Emma said. “I know you better than you know yourself Dean. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

Dean paused, again looking away and at anything but his girlfriend.

“I’m just thinking… maybe Mrs Rourke was right,” Dean said finally. “What is so important about me that I deserve to live over everyone else back there? Over Layla?”

“Please don’t start this again, Dean,” Emma said.

“But I’m right,” Dean said. “What makes me so important?”

“What makes you so important is exactly what Roy said about you,” Emma told him.

“Come on, Emma. You know that was just bull,” Dean said.

“No, it wasn’t,” Emma said adamantly.

“How can you be so sure?” Dean asked her.

“Because he saw what I see everyday Dean,” Emma told him. “What I see beneath what you show the world. Everything you do for these complete strangers, all the lives you’ve saved. Dean, you are the most amazing guy I have ever met.”

Walking closer to Dean, Emma gently took hold of his hands. And as she looked up at him, Dean could see her eyes glistening slightly.

“I trust in your instincts,” Emma continued. “I really do. But…. Dean, I’m not gonna be upset that the guy I love is still alive. I’m just not. You can’t expect me to.”

As she spoke, Dean looked deep into her eyes, seeing her like he always did. Emma truly meant every word she said. She believed in him, in what she saw inside him. And Dean loved the way she saw him, the way she had faith in him when he wasn’t even sure he had faith in himself. That faith she had in him was almost overwhelming and he couldn’t see where she had got it from, why she had. But he was glad she had it.

Pulling her closer to him, Dean wrapped her in a tight hug, Emma arms almost instinctively wrapping themselves round him as she hugged him back.

“I don’t,” Dean whispered softly to her.

@~~>~~~

Back at the motel room, Sam was sat in front of his laptop when Dean and Emma walked back in.

“What’d you find out?” Dean asked.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, a sad look on his face.

“Sorry about what?” Dean asked.

“Marshall Hall died at 4:17,” Sam told them.

“The exact time I was healed,” Dean added.

“Yeah. So, I put together a list of everyone Roy’s healed, six people over the past year, and I cross-checked them with the local obits,” Sam said, handing Dean and Emma a pile of research. “Every time someone was healed, someone else died. And each time, the victim died of the same symptom LeGrange was healing at the time.”

“Someone’s healed of cancer, someone else dies of cancer?” Emma questioned.

“Somehow,” Sam said. “LeGrange, he’s trading a life for another.”

“Wait, wait, wait. So, Marshall Hall died to save me?” Dean said.

“Dean, the guy probably would’ve died anyway,” Sam said. “And someone else would’ve been healed.”

“You never should’ve brought me here,” Dean told them.

“Dean, we were just trying to save your life,” Emma said.

“But some guy is dead now because of me,” Dean argued.

“We didn’t know,” Emma argued back.

“The thing I don’t understand is how is Roy doing it?” Sam said. “How’s he trading a life for a life?”

“Oh, he’s not doing it,” Dean said. “Something else is doing it for him.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“The old man I saw on stage,” Dean said. “I didn’t wanna believe it, but deep down I knew it.”

“You knew what?” Emma asked. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s only one thing that can give and take life like that,” Dean said, to which Sam and Emma simply looked confused. “We’re dealing with a reaper.”

“You really think it’s the Grim Reaper?” Emma said after letting the information sink in. “Like, angel of death, collect your soul, the whole deal?”

“No, no, no. Not the Reaper, a reaper,” Dean said. “There’s reaper lore in pretty much every culture on Earth. Go by a hundred different names. It’s possible that there’s more than one of ‘em.”

“But you said you saw a dude in a suit,” Sam said.

“Well, what, do you think he should’ve been workin’ the whole black robe thing? You said it yourself that the clock stopped, right?” Dean said, holding up on of the information sheet he had. “Reapers stop time. And you can only see ‘em when they’re comin’ at you, which is why I could see it and you couldn’t.”

“Maybe,” Sam said.

“There’s nothing else it could be,” Dean said. “The question is how’s Roy controllin’ the damn thing?”

“That cross,” Sam said, more to himself than the others.

“What?” Dean asked.

“There was this cross. I noticed it in the church tent, I knew I had seen it before,” Sam clarified while shuffling through the papers in front of him. Picking one from the pile, Sam handed it to Dean and Emma. On it was a drawing of a skeleton, a drown on it’s head and the cross Sam had seen in the corner.

“A tarot?” Dean questioned.

“It makes sense,” Sam said. “I mean, tarot dates back to the early Christian era, right? When some priests were still using magic? And a few of them veered into the dark stuff. Necromancy, and how to push death away, how to cause it.”

“So, Roy is using black magic to bind the reaper?” Emma put before the group.

“If he is, he’s riding the whirlwind,” Sam said. “It’s like putting a dog leash on a Great White.”

“Ok, then we stop Roy,” Dean said after a moment of thought.

“How?” Sam asked.

“You know how,” Dean said simply.

“Wait, what the hell are you talking about, Dean?” Emma said, clocking on. “We can’t kill Roy.”

“The guy’s playing God, he’s deciding who lives and who dies,” Dean argued back. “That’s a monster in my book.”

“No, we’re not gonna kill a human being, Dean,” Sam said, backing Emma’s side. “We do that, we’re no better than he is.”

“Ok, so we can’t kill Roy, we can’t kill death. Any bright ideas, college boy?” Dean said sarcastically.

“Ok, uh, if Roy is using some kind of black spell on the reaper, we’ve gotta figure out what it is,” Sam said, coming up with a ‘bright idea’. “And how to break it.”

@~~>~~~

Trying to figure out how this was happening, Sam, Dean and Emma were back at Roy LeGrange’s church the next day.

“If Roy is using a spell, there might be a spell book,” Sam said as the group got out of the car.

“See if you guys can find it,” Dean said, checking his watch. “Hurry up, too, the service starts in fifteen minutes. I’ll try to stall Roy.”

“Alright,” Sam said, their path taking them past the protester they had seen there the other day.

“Roy LeGrange is a fraud,” he continued to shout to anyone in the crowd that would listen. “He’s no healer.”

“Amen, brother,” Dean said to him, him, Sam and Emma the only people paying much attention to this man.

“You keep up the good word,” Emma added.

“Thank you,” he said, watching them walk away, Sam and Emma in one direction while Dean headed towards the tent.

@~~>~~~

Outside the LeGrange house, Sue Ann was with her husband, her and another man helping him down the porch steps. Once they were gone, Sam and Emma pulled out of their hiding place, sneaking round the front of the house and through a window.

Inside, the pair found themselves in the library, both searching through the books on the shelves.

“So what exactly are we looking for?” Emma asked Sam for clarification.

“I’m not sure,” Sam said honestly. “A spell book clearly, but it could be a number of things.”

“Right,” Emma said, going back to the search.

Looking over the shelves, Sam noticed a thin layer of dust along the front of the books covering the wood. All but in one place where the wood could been seen through a small gap in the dust. This book had been pulled out recently.

Taking it from the shelf, Sam read the front cover. Encyclopaedia of Christian History. He began flipping through the pages as Emma moved to stand beside him. Looking over his shoulder, Emma noticed something else on the shelf that he had missed. In the space where the encyclopaedia had been was another, smaller book, tucked away and hidden. Pulling it out, Emma flipped through the pages of this book with Sam watching her. She stopped when she came to a picture of a reaper.

“I think it’s safe to say this is what we were looking for,” Emma said, flipping through the pagers again until Sam suddenly stopped her.

“Wait,” he said, pointing to the picture on this page. “That’s the cross.”

Tucked away in the pages of this book were a number of newspaper clippings. Taking them out, Sam flipped through the subjects and headlines of some. The first was an article about an openly gay teacher who was sending a strong message of tolerance and acceptance to the nation’s schools. The next one started with the headline: ‘Local Abortion Rights Advocate Calls For End To Violence Against Woman’. The third clipping the two recognised, taking notice of. It was an article about Roy’s very own protester, David Wright.

“And I think we found his next victim,” Emma said, her and Sam leaving the house with the small book.

@~~>~~~

Waiting and watching inside the tent, Dean attention was drawn to the cell phone in his pocket as it rang.

“What do you got?” Dean asked as he answered it.

“Roy’s choosing victims he sees as immoral,” Emma’s voice spoke on the other end. “And we think we know who’s next on his list. Remember that protestor?”

“The guy in the parking lot?” Dean said.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll find him,” Emma said. “But you can’t let Roy heal anyone, alright?”

Both hung up, Dean going back to his waiting game while Sam and Emma searched the car park for David.

The waiting game paid off, somewhat, as Roy began his service.

“Layla. Layla Rourke,” Roy called into the audience. “Come up here, child.”

As the crowd clapped and cheered for Layla, she stood, hugging her mother tight.

“Baby, I love you,” Mrs Rourke whispered into her daughter’s ear.

“Oh, man,” Dean groaned out. Why did it have to be her?

As Layla removed herself from her mother’s arms, making her way up to the stage, Dean stood in her way.

“Layla, listen to me, you can’t go up there,” he told her.

“Why not?” Layla asked. “We’ve waited for months.”

“You can’t let Roy heal you,” Dean told her.

“I don’t understand,” Lalyla said softly. “I mean, Roy healed you, didn’t he? Why wouldn’t I at least let him try?”

“Because if you do, something bad is gonna happen,” Dean told her the half truth. “I can’t explain, I just need you to believe me.”

“Layla,” Sue ann called to her, holding out her hand for Layla to join her on the stage.

“Please,” Dean almost begged her as Lalyla looked back into her mother’s eyes, the woman urging her to go forward.

“I’m sorry,” Layla told Dean, brushing past him.

“Layla. Layla!” Dean called after her. but she didn’t listen. She just moved to the stage, taking Sue Ann’s hand and letting herself be led forward.

@~~>~~~

Out in the parking lot, Sam and Emma were still looking for David with no luck.

“Help!” they suddenly heard his voice call out. Following the voice and the direction they believed it to be in, Sam and Emma continued to search for David who, unknown to them, had already been marked by the reaper.

@~~>~~~

In the church, Roy had begun his service, raising his hands in the air.

“Pray with me, friends,” he said to the crowd before turning to Layla. “I hope you’re ready.”

“I am,” Layla said as the crowd raised their arms along with Roy. All but Dean, who stood still in the back, unsure of what he was supposed to do.

@~~>~~~

In the parking lot, David was still calling out for help as the reaper was cornering him.

“Help! Help me, please!” he called out as Sam and Emma finally found him.

“Where is it?” Emma asked.

“It’s right there!” David said, pointing to what he saw as the reaper, but Sam and Emma only saw a fresh air.

“Alright, come on!” Sam said, dragging David away with him and Emma.

@~~>~~~

In the church, Roy was lowering his hand as always, ready to lay his healing touch on the waiting Layla.

“Fire! Hey, tent’s on fire!” Dean’s voice cut through the silence of the crowd, the words making everyone jump to their feet and scrambling to the exit. “Fire! Everybody, get out of here!”

“No! No, please! Please, don’t stop!” Mrs Rourke called through the chaos. “Please! Reverend, please! Please! Please, don’t stop! Please!”

Dean heard her words and wished to God he hadn’t had to do that. If Roy had chosen anyone else today, he would have been fine. But not Layla. He had now condemned her to death.

Pushing his emotions aside as always, Dean pulled his phone from his pocket, dialling through to Emma as Roy called over the crowd.

“Friends, if you’d all just leave the tent in an orderly fashion, then we can figure out what’s going on out there.”

“I did it,” Dean told Emma down the phone. “I stopped Roy.”

“David, I think it’s ok,” Emma said to him. Breathing a sigh of relief, David nodded and turned his face away. But his relief was short lived as the reaper was now stood in front of him.

“No!” David called, scrambling back.

“Dean, it didn’t work!” Emma told him. “The reaper’s still comin’!”

Sam and Emma watched David, unable to do anything as they couldn’t see the reaper that approached him. All they saw was David falls to his knees, his face been quickly drained of it’s colour as the reaper placed his hand against his cheek.

“I’m tellin’ you!” Emma called desperately down the phone. “I’m tellin’ you, it must not have worked. Roy must not be controlling this thing!”

“Well, then who the hell is?” Dean said, his eyes scanning the church and finally falling on the culprit. Sue Ann stood in the corner with her back to him and muttering.

“Sue Ann,” Dean breathed down the phone before hanging up, moving quickly to Sue Ann and spinning her to face him. Round her neck and clasped in her hand was necklace holding the cross from Sam had said was a large part of this.

Her muttering and casting interrupted, the Reaper backed away from David in the car park, his face quickly gaining it’s colour back and gasping for air as his hand lost contact with his skin.

Inside the tent, Sue Ann quickly tucked the cross beneath her shirt.

“Help!” she called out. “Help me! Help!”

Hearing her cries, two sheriffs were immediately on the scene, dragging Dean away from Sue Ann and out of the tent with Sue Ann trailing behind them.

“I just don’t understand. After everything we’ve done for you, after Roy healed you. We’re very, very disappointed, Dean,” Sue Ann said before turning to the sheriffs. “You can let him go, I’m not gonna press charges. The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit.”

With that said, Sue Ann walked away, leaving Dean with the law.

“We catch you around here again, son, we’ll put the fear of God in you, understand?” one of them said to Dean.

“Yes, sir. Fear of God. Got it,” Dean said as the officers roughly let him go, walking away to reveal Layla now stood in front of him.

“Layla,” Dean said almost desperately.

“Why would you do that, Dean?” she said to him. “When it could’ve been my only chance.”

“He’s not a healer,” Dean said.

“He healed you,” Layla countered.

“I know it doesn’t seem fair. And I wish I could explain, but Roy is not the answer,” Dean said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Goodbye, Dean,” she replied simply. “I wish you luck. I really do.”

“Same to you,” Dean called after her retreating back. “You deserve it a lot more than me.”

Walking back to the car to find Sam and Emma, Dean passed by Roy, Sue Ann and Mrs Rourke, overhearing their conversation.

“Private session tonight. No interruptions,” Roy said. “I give you my word. I’ll heal your daughter.”

“Thank you, Reverend. God bless you,” Mrs Rourke praised as Dean watched them carefully.

@~~>~~~

Back at their motel room, the group was going over the separate information they had found.

“So Roy really believes?” Sam questioned to Dean.

“I don’t think he has any idea what his wife’s doing,” Dean answered.

“Well, we found this hidden in their library,” Emma said, showing Dean the small book she still had. “It’s ancient. Written by a priest who went dark side. There’s a binding spell in here for trapping a reaper.”

“Must be a hell of a spell,” Dean said, flipping through the pages.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “You’ve got to build a black altar, with seriously dark stuff. Bones, human blood. To cross the line like that, that preacher’s wife. Black magic, murder. Evil.”

“Desperate,” Dean corrected. “Her husband was dying, she’d have done anything to save him. She was using the binding spell to keep the reaper away from Roy.”

“Cheating death. Literally,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but Roy’s alive, so why’s she still using the spell?” Dean said.

“Right,” Sam agreed. “To force the reaper to kill people she thinks are immoral.”

“May God save us from half the people who think they’re doing God’s work,” Dean recited.

“We’ve gotta break that binding spell, Dean,” Sam said. flipping through the pages, Dean stopped on one showing the cross Sue Ann had been wearing round her neck.

“You know, Sue Ann had a Coptic cross like this,” Dean pointed out. “And when she dropped it, the reaper backed off.”

“So, you think we’ve gotta find the cross or destroy the altar?” Emma asked.

“Maybe both,” Dean answered. “Whatever we do, we better do it soon. Roy’s healing Layla tonight.”

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up outside the private session in Roy’s church.

“That’s Layla’s car,” Sam said, pointing to a car close by them. “She’s already here.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, no emotion in his voice.

“Dean,” Emma questioned.

“You know, if Roy would have picked Layla instead of me, she’d be healed right now,” Dean said, finally getting out what he felt.

“Dean, don’t,” Emma said gently.

“And if she’s not healed tonight, she’s gonna die in a couple months,” Dean continued.

“What’s happening to her is horrible. But, what are you gonna do? Let somebody else die to save her? You said it yourself, Dean. You can’t play God,” Emma said, getting nothing from Dean. “I’ve said this once today, and I’m gonna say it again till you get it. I am not gonna be upset that you are alive Dean. And neither should you.”

The response this time was a quick glance in the mirror, back at Emma, before Dean silently got out of the car and to the tent, Sam and Emma following.

“Gather round. Please, everyone, gather round. Come in closer. Come on up,” Roy said as Layla walked up on to the stage.

“Where’s Sue Ann?” Dean asked.

“House,” Sam suggested.

Following Sam’s intuition, he, Dean and Emma went to the house to find it dark and seemingly empty.

“Go find Sue Ann. I’ll catch up,” Dean said, looking round.

“What are you…?” Sam began, but didn’t get an answer as Dean left their side to walk round the front of the house where the sheriffs from earlier today were.

“Hey,” he called to them. “You gonna put that fear of God in me?”

Taking off round the side of the house, Dean was quickly persuade by the cops, leaving the way open for Sam and Emma to find a way into the house. And the easiest and only way inside they found was the cellar.

@~~>~~~

At the parking lot outside the tent, the sheriffs were still looking round for Dean, who was now eluding them.

“You see him?” one asked.

“No,” the other answered. Suddenly, the sound of a barking dog caught their attention, both turning to see a large dog barking up out of the window of a trailer.

“Psycho mutt,” the first sheriff said, the pair walking away from the dog. If they had stopped to look, they would have seen that what the dog was barking at was actually Dean, who was hiding on top of the trailer.

@~~>~~~

In the cellar of the LeGrange house, Sam and Emma had the luck to come across exactly what they were looking for. Sue Ann’s altar complete with crosses, blood bones, candles… and a picture of Dean from the security camera with a blood X across his face. The next victim?

“I gave him life, and I can take it away,” Sue Ann’s voice said from behind them. Sam and Emma turned to see her stood in the doorway above them. Sam didn’t say a word, he just overturned the altar, tipping the contents and destroying it.

Sue Ann backed up, locking the cellar door with them inside and sliding a metal bar in the handles.

“Can’t you see?” Sue Ann continued through the door. “The Lord chose me to reward the just and punish the wicked. And your brother is wicked. And he deserves to die just as Layla deserves to live. It's God’s will.”

Sam and Emma simply chose to ignore her, trying the window as their exit.

“Goodbye,” Sue Ann called as Sam used another bar from the floor to pry the window open.

@~~>~~~

At the church, Roy stood over Layla, Mrs Rourke at his side, and began to try to heal her.

“Mrs. Rourke, pray with me. Pray with me, friends,” Roy said.

Out in the parking lot, the spell’s magic began it’s work. While Sue Ann stood outside the tent, looking in and muttering her spell, Dean watched with something between slight fear and acceptance as the reaper walked towards him, placing his hand on the side of Dean’s face, the colour draining from his features as it had with David.

With each move that Roy and Layla made inside the tent, Dean and the reaper copied. As Roy guided Layla gently to her knees, Dean fell almost aggressively to his.

As Sue Ann stood muttering behind the tent, she didn’t notice Sam and Emma walking up behind her, Emma turning her forcefully ripping the cross from her neck, shattering it on the floor.

Once the cross shattered, the spell was broken, the reaper taking his hand from Dean’s face, allowing the colour to return to his features and the air to rush back into his lung with a large gasp. At the same time, inside the tent, Roy took his hand from Layla, his healing powers gone.

“I don’t understand,” Roy said.

“I don’t feel different. Reverend?” Layla muttered softly.

“Sue Ann?” Roy called for his wife, getting no response from anything.

Outside the tent, his wife whimpered over her broken cross.

“My God! What have you done?!” Sue Ann cried.

“He’s not your God,” Emma replied almost coldly. This woman did, after all, just try to kill her boyfriend after giving him back to her.

Sue Ann turned abruptly to come face to face with the grinning face of the reaper she had only moment ago been in control of.

She tried to back away, scramble towards Sam and Emma who simply stood watching, but the reaper was faster. He moved to her, placing his hand on her cheek and guiding her to the ground as the colour drained from her face and the air left her lungs. Still, Sam and Emma watched, either unable of unwilling to do anything as she collapsed to the floor, twitching in pain before her hold on life gave in.

Leaving her lying where she was and getting out of there fast as they could, Sam and Emma found Dean already stood by the car, pretty much leaning against it after almost dying for a second time.

“You ok?” Emma asked him.

“A little bit weak,” Dean answered.

“Yeah. Alright, come on, we should get going,” Sam, the three getting in the car and leaving.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, with this case finally over, Dean and Emma were in the motel packing to leave, Sam already packed and checking them out. While Emma moved round the room, gathering her stuff, she couldn’t help but notice Dean from the corner of her eyes, sat on the edge of the bed lost in thought. And by the look on his face, they weren’t good thoughts.

“What is it?” Emma asked him.

“Nothing,” Dean replied.

“What is it?” Emma asked again persistently, knowing just when he was lying to her.

“We did the right thing here, didn’t we?” Dean said, and Emma knew without a doubt exactly what, or who, he was talking about.

“Of course we did,” Emma answered.

“Didn’t feel like it,” Dean said, their conversation halted by a knock at the door.

“I got it,” Emma said with a sigh and a strained smile. There was only one person she expected who would knock.

“Hey, Layla,” she said to their visitor as she opened the door. “Come on in.”

“Hey,” Layla said slightly nervously as she stepped inside.

“Hey,” Dean said, a curious tone in his voice. “How’d you know we were here?”

“Um, Emma called. She said you wanted to say goodbye,” Layla answered. Dean turned to Emma, shocked as to why she would do something like that.

“I’m gonna go find Sam,” Emma said, giving a weak smile to Dean as she left.

“So, um, where are you going?” Layla asked nervously once they were alone.

“Don’t know yet. Our work kind of takes us all over,” Dean said.

“You know, I went back to see Roy,” Layla told him.

“What happened?” Dean asked, playing dumb.

“Nothing,” Layla said, taking a seat ion the edge of one of the beds. “I mean, he laid his hand on my forehead, but nothing happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said honestly. “I’m sorry it didn’t work.”

“And Sue Ann,” Layla added. “She’s dead, you know? Stroke.”

“Yeah, I heard. I mean, Roy’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve what’s happened,” Dean said. And that was the truth. Roy hadn’t been a bad mad, but quite the opposite. He was just a victim of circumstance… and a psychotic wife! “It must be rough. To believe in something so much, and have it disappoint you like that.”

“You wanna hear something weird,” Layla said gently. “I’m ok. Really. I guess, if you're gonna have faith, you can’t just have it when the miracles happen. You have to have it when they don’t.”

“So, what now?” Dean asked her.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Layla said with a shrug, gently touching his cheek. “Goodbye, Dean.”

Lalyla stood, heading towards the door.

“Hey,” Dean said, making her turn to him at the door. “Uh, you know, I’m not much of the prayin’ type. But I’m gonna pray for you.”

“Well,” Layla said, a soft smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. “There’s a miracle right there.”

Dean didn’t stop her this time as Layla left the room. Outside, she turned left, walking away from Dean’s room. If she had turned right, she would have come into contact with Emma, stood hidden away down the side of the building, tears streaming steadily down her own face.

Emma knew exactly where Sam was, and he would be back when he was ready. So instead, she had stood outside the door, listening to the voices inside. And with each word she wished she hadn’t. Wished she hadn’t told Layla to come, and wished she wasn’t listening in.

She hated how much of an effect women who spent a matter of days with Dean had on him. They had him opening up about simple things, whereas she who had known him most of her life, couldn’t get him to tell her anything about anything.

The minute she had heard Layla’s footsteps heading closer to the door, she had run. Hidden behind the building. She didn’t want Dean to see her like this, angry tears spilling from her eyes. But, the thing was, she wasn’t sure who she was really angry with. Dean, for flirting and hanging on to random women while all the while keeping her at a distance. Or herself, for letting him do that to her.


	13. Route 666

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Dean is contacted by his first love Cassie, an African-America girl who asks him to come to Mississippi to investigate a string of racially motivated murders. Each murder is linked to a mysterious truck that seems to have no driver and leave no tracks. The re-appearance of Dean’s first love causes him to choose between his residual feelings for Cassie and his love for Emma.

In the deep of night, an aging African American man was driving down Route 6 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a news report on the radio. When the station turned to static, he turned the dial, switching it off after finding nothing. Seconds later, a large back truck came speeding down the road behind the cars, getting closer and closer.

“What the…?” the man said as the truck got faster and closer.

He tried to beat it, driving faster himself and trying to put a distance between him and the truck. But as he drove faster, so did the truck, slamming into the back of him and sending him forward into the steering wheel. As he drove even faster, trying to gain that small amount of distance, the radio that had moments ago been nothing but static tuned itself in, flashing back to life. Taking him by surprise, he took his gaze away from his rear view mirror for a second. When he looked back, the truck had vanished.

Confused but thankful for the moment, he continued driving at his normal speed. His thankfulness, however, was short lived as the truck that had vanished now appeared in front of him. He slammed on his brakes suddenly, swerving to a stop. The car already halfway round, he turned it the rest of the way, the truck back behind him again and gaining speed quickly and slamming into the back of him again. This slam was the final straw as he lost control of the car, careening off the road and down a landslide, flipping twice to land right side up.

The truck finally slowed its speed, reversing to stop next to the car, seemingly watching the twisted, bloody and bruised body inside the car.

@~~>~~~

Taking one of their well needed breaks at a gas station for fuel for both the car and themselves, Sam and Emma were leant by the car looking over a map while Dean stood in the background, his phone on his ear and listening to a voicemail message.

“Ok, I think I found.…” Sam began, the sound of Emma clearing her throat interrupting him. “Ok, Emma found a way we can bypass that construction, just east of here. We might even make Pennsylvania faster than we thought.”

Dean, who had been listening to only half of what Sam had been saying, hung up his phone and walked back to them, a surprised expression on his face.

“Yeah. Problem is, we’re not going to Pennsylvania,” Dean told them.

“We what?” Sam questioned.

“Just got a call from, uh, an old friend,” Dean said almost nervously. Emma turned away from him, focusing on the map, not liking hearing that tone in her boyfriends voice and knowing what it meant. “Her father was killed last night, she thinks it might be our kind of thing.”

“What?” Sam questioned again.

“Yeah. Believe me, she never would’ve called, never, if she didn’t need us,” Dean said, climbing into the car while Sam and Emma stayed outside. Sam glanced over at Emma, wondering if she was any clearer on this than he was, but she was still concentrating intently on the map.

“Come on, you guys comin’ or what?” Dean called to them. Sam followed him, still confused, taking a few seconds before Emma followed as well.

“By old friend, you mean…?” Sam asked after a moment’s silence on the drive. Before answering, Dean glanced back at Emma in the back seat. Emma, however, did absolutely everything she could not to look back at him, seemingly finding whatever she was watching out of the window exceedingly interesting.

“A friend that’s not new,” Dean answered finally, making Sam chuckle slightly.

“Yeah, thanks. So, her name’s Cassie, huh?” Sam asked, Dean nodding in answer. “You never mentioned her.”

“Didn’t I?” Dean said hesitantly.

“No,” Sam said simply.

“Yeah, we went out,” Dean said.

“You mean there’s another girl you dated?” Sam said, referring to Emma in the backseat who was taking no part in this conversation. “For more than one night?”

“Am I speakin’ a language you’re not getting here?” Dean said, making Sam laugh slightly. “Yeah. It was before Emma and Dad and I were workin’ a job in Athens, Ohio. She was finishing up college, and we went out for a couple weeks.”

“And?” Sam asked, to which Dean simply shook his head as if that was enough of an answer. “Look, it’s terrible about her dad, but it kind of sounds like a standard car accident. I’m not seeing how it fits with what we do. Which, by the way, how does she know what we do?”

Dean didn’t say anything or make any kind of movement, which was enough of an answer for Sam to put things together and stare at his brother in disbelief.

“You told her,” Sam cried out. “You told her? The secret? Our big family rule number one, we do what we do, and we shut up about it. For a year and a half I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a couple of times and you tell her everything?”

Again, Dean remained silent and still.

“Dean!” Sam again cried out.

“Yeah. Looks like it.” Dean said, his answer knocking the whole car into silence again as Sam sulked at the thought.

@~~>~~~

In the town newspaper, the ‘old friend’ Dean had gotten his voicemail message from, Cassie Robinson, was walking beside two men. One was Jimmy Anderson, the African American owner of the newspaper. The other was Harold Todd, the Caucasian mayor of the town.

“It’s a newspaper we put out here, not a bulletin for the mayor’s office,” Jimmy said angrily.

“Get off your soapbox, Jimmy,” Harold said. “I’m urging a little discretion is all.”

“No, I think you’re telling us what you want us to print, and what you want us to sit on,” Cassie added, backing up Jimmy.

“I know you’re upset, Cassie,” Harold said in that typical fake compassion tone anyone in power often uses. “I liked your dad a lot. But I think your grief is clouding your judgment.”

“Two black people were killed on the same stretch of road in the same way in three weeks,” Jimmy stated while, in the background, Sam, Dean and Emma walked in unnoticed.

“Jimmy, you’re too close to this. Those guys were friends of yours,” Harold said before turning to Cassie. “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Leaving the conversation on this note, Harold walked away, an angry Jimmy storming off in the opposite direction. With a sigh, Cassie turned towards the door, a stunned look coming over her face as her eyes fell on Dean, who nodded and smiled weakly at her.

“Dean,” Cassie said in a stunned voice matching her features as she walked over to the group.

“Hey, Cassie,” Dean replied before an awkward silence fell between the two, neither of them knowing just what they were meant to say in this type of situation.

“This is my brother, Sam,” Dean said, motioning to Sam. Cassie turned to him and both nodded and smiled at each other in greeting.

“And….” Dean began, turning his attention to Emma, but hesitated. And Emma saw the hesitation. She turned to Cassie, a strained smile on her face that Cassie didn’t seem to notice as she realised just how pretty her boyfriend’s ex was.

“The boy has no manners. I’m Emma,” she began and from the corner of her eye, she watched Dean. He was watching her back, waiting to see how she introduced herself. “An old friend of the family,” Emma finally finished.

“Hey,” Cassie replied to this, smiling at Emma. Although she tried to avoid their gaze, Emma could sense that both Sam and Dean were staring at her, shocked. But Dean brushed it away, shaking his head and turning his attention back to Cassie.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Dean said softly, the compassion in his voice truer than the one in Harold’s.

“Yeah. Me, too,” Cassie said.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Sam, Dean and Emma were sat on the couch in Cassie’s house, her serving them tea as they tried to get more information.

“My mother’s in pretty bad shape,” she began to tell them. “I’ve been staying with her. I wish she would walk by herself, she’s been so nervous and frightened. She was worried about Dad.”

“Why?” Dean asked.

“He was scared,” Cassie said. “He was seeing things.”

“Like what?” Dean asked.

“He swore he saw an awful-looking black truck following him,” Cassie answered.

“A truck?” Sam questioned. “Who was the driver?”

“He didn’t talk about a driver. Just the truck,” Cassie said. “He said it would appear and disappear. And in the accident, Dad’s truck was dented. Like it had been slammed into, by something big.”

“Thanks,” Sam said as Cassie handed him his cup of tea. “Now, you’re sure this dent wasn’t there before?”

“He sold cars. Always drove a new one. I mean, there wasn’t a scratch on that thing,” Cassie said, tears filling her eyes as she began to recall everything she had been told from that night. “It had rained hard that night, there was mud everywhere. There was a distinct set of muddy tracks from Dad’s car, leading right to the edge… where he went over. One set of tracks. His.”

“And the first person killed was a friend of your father’s?” Dean said.

“Best friend. Clayton Solmes. They owned the car dealership together,” Cassie said, shaking her head. “Same thing. Dent, no tracks. And the cops said exactly what they said about Dad. He lost control of his car.”

“Now, can you think of any reason why your father and his partner might be targets?” Dean asked.

“No,” Cassie answered simply.

“And you think this vanishing truck ran him off the road?” Emma asked.

“Oh, when you say it aloud like that,” Cassie said, sounded embarrassed. “Listen, I’m a little sceptical about this… ghost stuff, or whatever it is you guys are into.”

“Sceptical,” Dean said with a chuckle. “Yeah, if I remember, I think you said it was nuts.”

“That was then,” Cassie said. “I just know that I can’t explain what happened up there, so I called you.”

Just then, the sound of a door clicking open and closed again interrupting them. Next thing, a bedraggled and tired looking Caucasian middle aged woman walked into the room.

“Mom!” Cassie said, getting to her feet. “Where have you been, I was so….”

“Oh. I had no idea you’d invited friends over,” Mrs Robinson interrupted her.

“Uh, Mom, this is Dean, a friend of mine from… college,” Cassie stumbled out. “And his brother, Sam, and their friend Emma.”

“Well, uh, I won’t interrupt you,” Mrs Robinson said, turning to leave.

“Mrs. Robinson,” Dean said, making her stop. “We’re sorry for your loss. And we’d like to talk to you for a minute, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m really not up to that just now,” Mrs Robinson said, her expression cold as she turned to Dean before walking away.

@~~>~~~

Unknown to Sam, Dean and Emma, while they had been getting information from Cassie, another ‘accident’ had occurred on the same stretched of road. Jimmy Anderson, the newspapers owner, was dead inside his wreck of a car, the black truck watching from a few feet away before backing into nothingness.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, the road that had the night before been deserted was now swarming with police, ambulance and other town members all crowded round Jimmy’s place of death. Two of the crowd members, Harold and Cassie, were walking through the crowd.

“Jimmy meant something to this town,” Harold said. “He was one of our best. It won’t be the same without him.”

“Our best seem to be dropping like flies,” Cassie retorted. “Clayton, my father, Jimmy.”

“What is it exactly you want me to do?” Harold asked.

“Well, how about closing this section of road, for starters,” Cassie suggested.

“Close the main road, the only road in and out of town?” Harold said, shaking his head. “Accidents do happen, Cassie. That’s what they are. Accidents.”  
Walking onto the scene like they truly belonged there, Sam, Dean and Emma strode up to Cassie and Harold.

“Did the cops check for additional denting on Jimmy’s car?” Dean asked. “See if it was pushed?”

“Who’s this?” Harold said.

“Dean and Sam Winchester and Emma Grey. Family friends,” Cassie said, making her introductions to Harold before turning to Sam, Dean and Emma. “This is Mayor Harold Todd.”

“So, one set of tire tracks. One. Doesn’t point to foul play,” Harold said in answer to Dean’s question, Dean looking out at the tracks on the road that led towards Jimmy’s car. The one and only set.

“Mayor, the police and town officials take their cues from you,” Cassie said to him. “If you’re indifferent about….”

“Indifferent?” Harold questioned her.

“Would you close the road if the victims were white?” Cassie clarified.

“You’re suggesting I’m racist, Cassie?” Harold said, truthfully shocked. “I’m the last person you should talk to like that.”

“And why is that?” Cassie asked.

“Why don’t you ask your mother?” Harold said before walking away, leaving a confused and hurt Cassie behind.

@~~>~~~

Down at the docks, Sam, Dean and Emma were trussed up in business suits, figuring the official look and false ID’s would get them more answers with fewer questions their way. And to get those answers, the stepped up to two men playing checkers at a small table, one African-American and the other Caucasian.

“Excuse me, are you Ron Stubbins?” Dean asked, to which the Caucasian man nodded. “You were friends of Jimmy Anderson?”

“Who are you?” Ron asked the three.

“We’re with Mr. Anderson’s insurance company,” Emma answered. “We’re just here to dot some i’s and cross some t’s.”

“We were just wondering, had the deceased mentioned any unusual recent experiences?” Sam asked.

“What do you mean, unusual?” Ron asked.

“Well, visions, hallucinations,” Sam clarified.

“It’s all part of a medical examination kind of thing,” Dean added. “All very standard.”

“What company did you say you were with?” Ron asked.

“All National Mutual,” Dean said, Partially taking an envelope with what appeared to be the logo on it, putting it back in his pocket before Ron or his friend could question anything further. “Tell me, did he ever mention seeing a truck? A big, black truck?”

The second, un-named guy who hadn’t been paying much attention up until this point suddenly seemed very interesting.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ron said. “You even speaking English?”

“Son, this truck. A big, scary, monster-lookin’ thing?” the other man questioned.

“Yeah, actually, I think so,” Dean said.

“Hm,” the man said with a nod.

“What?” Dean questioned.

“I have heard of a truck like that,” the man answered.

“You have? Where?” Emma asked.

“Not where,” he said. “When. Back in the sixties, there was a string of deaths. Black men. Story goes, they disappeared in a big, nasty, black truck.”

“They ever catch the guy who did it?” Dean asked.

“Never found him. Hell, I’m not sure they even really looked. See, there was a time this town wasn’t too friendly to all its citizens,” he said with a glare in Ron’s direction.

“Thank you,” Emma said with a smile, the trio walking back to the car.

“Truck,” Dean said, thinking back to what both Cassie and the man they had just spoken to said.

“Keeps comin’ up, doesn’t it?” Sam said.

“You know what I was thinking?” Dean said. “You heard of the Flying Dutchman?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, thinking to the tale. “A ghost ship infused with the captain’s evil spirit. Basically a part of him.”

“Yeah, so what if we’re dealing with the same thing?” Dean said. “You know, a phantom truck that’s the extension of some bastard ghost, re-enacting past crimes.”

“The victims have all been black men,” Emma said matter-of-factly.

“It’s more than that,” Dean said. “They all seem connected to Cassie and her family.”

“Alright, well, you work with that angle,” Emma told Dean. “Go talk to her.”

“Yeah, I will,” Dean said sceptically, agreeing with her plan but still wondering why his current girlfriend was sending him to speak to an ex-girlfriend, alone.

@~~>~~~

Sat at her desk in her home, working at her computer, Cassie was knocked out of her concentration by a knock at the door. Answering it, she found Dean on the other side, alone.

“Dean, hey,” Cassie said with a smile.

“Hey,” Dean replied.

“Come on in,” Cassie said, sweeping aside so Dean could come in and closing the door behind her.

“So, are you busy?” Dean asked.

“Uh, the paper’s doing a tribute to Jimmy,” Cassie answered. “I was just going through his stuff, his awards. Trying to find the words.”

“That’s gotta be tough,” Dean said.

“For years, this family owned the paper, the Dorians. They had a whites only staff policy. After they sold it, Jimmy became the first black reporter. He didn’t stop till he became editor. He taught me everything. Where’s your brother and your friend?”

“Not here.”

“Alright, so, uh, what brings you here?”

“Trying to find the connection between the three victims. By the way, did you talk to your mom about what Todd said about not being a racist?”

“I did. She didn’t wanna talk about it.”

“Right.”

For a moment, the pair stood in an awkward silence, clearly notn ready to be left alone together yet.

“So, just then, um, why’d you ask where my brother and Emma were?” Dean asked into the silence.

“Nothing,” Cassie said. “Not important.”

“Could it be because without them here, it’s just you and me?” Dean said. “And not you, me, Sam and Emma, which would be easier?”

“It’s not easier,” Cassie blurted out, putting an upset look on Dean’s face. “Look, I….”

“No, forget it,” Dean interrupted, quickly pushing back his emotions like always. “It’s fine. We’ll keep it strictly business.”

“I forgot you do that,” Cassie said with a laugh.

“Do what?” Dean questioned.

“Oh, whenever we get… what’s the word, close? Anywhere in the neighbourhood of emotional vulnerability, you back off,” Cassie pretty much yelled at him. “Or make some joke, or find any way to shut the door on me.”

“Oh, that’s hilarious,” Dean said, this time him being the one with a laugh in his voice. “See, I’m not the one who took that big final door and slammed it behind me.”

“Wait a minute….” Cassie began, only to be interrupted by Dean again.

“And I’m not the one who took the key and buried it.”

“Are we done with this metaphor?”

“All I’m saying is I was totally upfront with you back then, and you nailed me with it.”

“The guy I’m with, the guy I’m hoping might be in my future tells me he professionally pops ghosts.”

“That’s not the words I used.”

“And that he has to leave to go work with his father.”

“I did.”

“All I could think was, if you want out, fine, but don’t tell me this insane story.”

“It was the truth, Cassie! And I noticed it didn’t sound so insane the minute you thought I could help you!”

“Back then, I thought you just wanted to dump me,” Cassie said, turning her back on a now surprised Dean.

“Whoa, let’s not forget who dumped who, okay?” Dean said, moving to step back in front of her.

“I thought it was what you wanted.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

“Well, you did.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Yeah, me too.”

Again, the room fell into a strange silence, the pair staring at each other. That was until Dean found himself almost involuntarily and unintentionally drawn closer to Cassie, closer than he had been to her in years now, and locking together in a passionate kiss.

@~~>~~~

Emma sat outside their motel, alone. Just how she wanted to be right now. Dean had gone off to speak to Cassie, on her orders none the less, and she didn’t want to think what was happening between them. But still, all sorts of things kept coming into her mind. Things that meant Dean was betraying her.

She wondered why she stuck around. All the things Dean did, any sane girl would have run for the hills a long time ago. But not her. She could keep telling herself that it was for Sam, but that was lie. She adored Sam like a brother, but she could still keep in touch with him. She had proved that when he was in Stanford. And it wasn’t because the boys needed her either. They could get along very well without her.

It was for love. There was no denying she loved Dean, more than she had ever loved anyone. That was why she stuck around. No matter what he did, she still loved him with all her heart. That’s what made her stay. That’s what made her weak when it came to Dean Winchester. Love.

Without Emma noticing, Sam walked out of the motel and over to her, staring down at her.

“Sometimes, I really don’t understand you,” he said in greeting, causing her to look up at him.

“What?” she asked. Sam sat down beside her on the wall, forcing her to look at him properly.

“Why, when we first met Cassie, did you introduce yourself as ‘an old family friend’?” Sam asked.

“That’s what I am,” Emma replied emotionlessly.

“To me, yeah. But I always though you were a little more when it came to Dean.”

“Sam, please, can… can we not do this right now,” Emma said, standing to leave. But Sam wouldn’t let her. He took hold of her arm, gently pulling her back down next to him

“No, we can do this now,” he said, keeping his gaze on her. “Do you really love Dean?” Emma paused at his question, knowing the answer but not sure if she wanted to say it.

“More than anything,” she said finally.

“Then why are you doing this?” Sam asked

“Doing what?” Emma asked in return.

“Letting my brother get away with this. I know he’s a jerk, but you’re encouraging him.” Emma laughed weakly, the sound strange coming from her. When Emma laughed, it usually lit up her entire face and the faces of everyone around her. But now, it was forced. And it hurt Sam to see her like this. Hurt him more to know his own brother was causing it.

“He loves you, you know,” Sam said after a light pause.

“He doesn’t even know the meaning of the word,” Emma said, another small but sad smile playing at her lips.

“You’re right,” Sam said, totally agreeing with her. “He never did. Until he met you.” His last statement caused Emma to lift her eyes to him momentarily, then back down quickly. But it was enough for Sam to see the emotion register on her pretty features.

“He’s my brother,” Sam continued. “I know him better than anyone. And I know that look I see in his eyes when he’s with you. It’s the exact same look you get. Because I know you too.” This time forcing Emma to look at him, Sam touched her cheek softly and turned her face to his.

“And this isn’t you. The thing with Layla, and now Cassie. It’s like you’re pushing him closer and closer to these girls.”

“Sam… you don’t understand,” Emma said, pulling out of his grip and holding back tears.

“Too right I don’t. If you love someone, you do anything to hold onto them.”

“And I have,” Emma said, and Sam wasn’t sure of what she meant.

“It doesn’t look like that from where I’m standing,” Sam said, not trying to be hard on the girl but needing to understand this, both for him and her. “You’re an amazing girl Emma. He got more than he ever deserved with you. But I know you’re not stupid.” Emma smiled softly at Sam’s comment, tears forming in the back of her eyes.

“So why are you doing this?” Sam asked the question Emma had been dreading to answer.

“Because….” At what she knew was true, Emma slowly began to break down. “I just can’t do it anymore Sam. I can’t hold onto something that’s not mine.”

And she got up and left, the tears that had been threatening to fall for so long now running in streams down her cheeks. She ran, leaving Sam to watch and wonder what she had meant.

@~~>~~~

Back at Cassie’s house, Dean’s common sense suddenly returned in a fell swoop, quickly pulling out of the kiss and turning his gaze away from her.

“I can’t do this,” he muttered almost inaudible.

“Wait, but….” Cassie began, staring at Dean and seeing what she should have already known with the facts she had. “Emma. I knew she was a little more than a family friend.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, his voice still soft. “She is.”

“And she knows about you,” Cassie said, her voice stable for the moment. “She understands it like I never could. You’ve even got her coming along with you on your little… hunts, or whatever you called them.”

“Yeah,” Dean said simply.

“So that’s it. This is all because I ran and she didn’t,” Cassie said, her voice getting cold now.

“No. It is nothing like that. I’ve known her my whole life Cassie. She’s been involved with ever aspect of my life just as much as Sam has.”

“I suppose she can deal with your moods right. Your avoidance of all emotional subjects.”

“You really have a low opinion of me, don’t you.”

“It’s the truth Dean, and you know it. And if she’s been around as long as you say she has, she’s clearly been through it all.”

“Yeah, I guess I have put her through quite a bit since… well, as long as I’ve known her. Since we were young.”

“And she’s still with you? She must really love you. Do you love her?”

Dean paused at Cassie’s question, taken by surprise. The fact of the matter was, he’d never thought about that before. As selfish as he knew it sounded, he had only ever seen her as the girl that was always there. A friend with benefits of sorts. He loved being around her, he knew that much for sure. She could always make him smile just when she was around, always knew the right things to say. And most importantly, she understood him. She knew when he was willing to speak, open up to some degree, and when to stop asking questions. But still, despite the fact that he knew all this with great certainty, he still couldn’t answer Cassie’s question.

“I don’t know,” Dean said finally.

“I’m glad you’ve got someone other that your brother around you who understands things,” Cassie said, her voice now softer and without it’s coldness. “And she seems like a nice enough girl, even if she is a little feisty. Just your type.”

“Yeah. Guess she is,” Dean answered with a smile as he thought again of all he knew about his girlfriend.

@~~>~~~

On that same stretch of deadly road next morning, Mayor Harold Todd was stood with a map in his hand, looking out at the recently cleared land with a smile on his face.

Heading back to his car, the rumbling and shaking sounds of a car brought his attention to the side where the black truck was stood still, watching him. As the truck began to head towards him, Harold tried to outrun it, but this truck was one that was absolutely impossible to get away from.

The truck finally caught up to it’s victim, knocking into him with a hard and heavy slam and sent him rolling into a ditch beside them. He lay, dead, his face bloody and distort as for a third time, the truck backed up slowly as it faded into nothing, satisfied with it’s work.

@~~>~~~

That same morning, once all the police cars and ambulances had arrived in that spot again, Sam was there with them. He had left Emma in the motel, asleep. He had heard her last night. She didn’t know it, but he had heard her, her harsh breathing as she sobbed slightly, trying her best to stop herself. Which is why he thought it best she stayed behind, just for today.

She had been truly hurt yesterday, he had seen it when they spoke. He hated seeing her like that. She was a sister to him, and he loved her that way. He couldn’t stand the fact that she had been hurt that much. That a girl he knew to be so strong and together could spend half the night sobbing into her pillow. But what he hated the most was the fact that it was Dean, his own brother who claimed to care about that girl who loved him so much, could be the one who had hurt her.

Sam had called Dean when he had got there, knowing that he would need more than just him on this right now. And his brother showed up just as he finished talking to the officer, the cops giving him a weird look.

“And he’s with me,” Sam said, motioning to Dean as he walked closer. The officer nodded as he walked away and Dean took his place, trying his best to hide the anger her felt towards his brother right now.

“Where were you last night?” Sam asked him, to which Dean said nothing. “You didn’t make it back to the motel.”

“Nope,” Dean answered, and Sam simply glared at him. “So, what happened?”

“Every bone crushed,” Sam said, actually happy to get back to business talk. “Internal organs turned to pudding. The cops are all stumped, but it’s almost like something ran him over.”

“Something like a truck?” Dean questioned, although he was sure he knew the answer.

“Yep,” Sam said.

“Tracks?” Dean asked.

“Nope,” Sam answered, to which Dean sighed.

“What was the mayor doing here anyway?” Dean said.

“He owned the property,” Sam said. “Bought it a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah, but he’s white,” Dean stated. “He doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“Killings didn’t happen up on the road. That doesn’t fit either,” Sam replied.

@~~>~~~

Trying to get more information, seeing what connection Mayor Harold Todd might have to this, Dean was sat at the computer in the newsroom, searching through sites, while Cassie came up behind him with a mug of coffee.

“Thanks,” Dean said, taking the mug from her. “So, I’m trying to find some link between those killings back in the sixties and what’s going on now, but there wasn’t a lot about it in the paper.”

“Not surprising,” Cassie said. “Probably minimum police work, too. Back then, equal justice under the law wasn’t too literal around here.”

Just then, Dean’s phone chimed to life, Dean immediately answering it.

“Yeah?” he answered, expecting Sam on the other end. Sam had told him he was gonna go back to the dock, search for any more information he could get out in the real world.

It wasn’t, however, his brother who answered him.

“Okay,” Emma’s voice echoed into his ear. “The courthouse records show that Mr. and Mrs. Mayor bought an abandoned property.”

The minute he had heard Emma’s voice on the other end, a wave of guilt washed over Dean as the events between him and Cassie last night came back to him.

“Emma?” Dean questioned. “I thought Sam was….”

“He sent me. This is about saving people’s lives, so get over it,” Emma said pretty coldly, not believing Dean had the right to feel guilty. She hadn’t known anything had happened between Dean and Cassie last night, hadn’t spoken to him since and didn’t want to think about it. But hearing his voice, the tone, she immediately heard the guilt. And if he had betrayed her, he didn’t have the right to be guilty. So, now, they were gonna keep this pure business to save people.

“Now, the previous owner was the Dorian family, for, like, 150 years,” Emma continued.

“Dorian?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Emma answered.

“Didn’t you say the Dorian family used to own this paper?” Dean said to Cassie, even if he wasn’t looking at her. Cassie nodded.

“Along with most everything else around here,” she said. “Real pillars of the town.”

“Right, right,” Dean said, pulling up old articles on the newspapers site. One in particular with the headline ‘Dorian Still Missing. Cyrus Dorian Missing For More Than A Week’.   
“That’s interesting.”

“What?” Emma asked, out of the loop.

“This Cyrus Dorian, he vanished in April of ’63,” Dean told her. “The case was investigated but never solved. That’s right around the time the string of murders was going on back then.”

“Well, I pulled a bunch of paper up on the Dorian place,” Emma said. “It must have been in bad shape when the mayor bought it.”

“Why is that?” Dean asked.

“The first thing he did was bulldoze the place,” Emma answered.

“Mayor Todd knocked down the Dorian place?” Dean said to Cassie, who nodded again.

“It was a big deal,” she said. “One of the oldest local houses left. It made the front page.”

“You got a date?” Dean asked into the phone to Emma.

“The third of last month,” Emma answered, reading from the information in the small book she had in her hands. Dean went back to the computer, typing in the date Emma had given him, and a new article came up. ‘Mayor Buys, Bulldozes Historic Home. Heritage Committee Questions Civic Leadership’.

“Mayor Todd bulldozes Dorian family home on the third,” Dean read. “The first killing was the very next day.”

“Right,” Emma said, the pieces slowly beginning to fit into place.

“Look, Emma….” Dean began on a new topic.

The next thing he heard was the dial done ringing in his ear.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Cassie was alone in her house. Walking through the living room, the lights round the house suddenly began to flicking, this also knocking Cassie’s attention to the sound of rumbling outside her window. The truck!

Cassie shut the blinds on the window, blotting out the light, as the truck started to drive, heading towards the front door. Inside the house, the rumbling echoes round the house, windows opening and closing, Cassie’s papers flying round the room.

Her fear hitting it’s maximum level, Cassie scrambled terrified to her cell phone in the hallway, the truck visible through the glass front door as she dialled

“Dean! Dean!” she shrieked down the other end the minute the phone was picked up.

@~~>~~~

In answer to her frantic phone call, Sam, Dean and Emma were now round at Cassie’s, Sam this time the one handing out coffee to a shaken Cassie with her mother sat beside her.

“Maybe you could throw a couple shots in there,” Cassie said, taking it as he sat down.

“You didn’t see who was driving the truck?” Dean asked.

“Seemed to be no one,” Cassie said with a shake of her head. “Everything was moving so fast. And then it was just gone. Why didn’t it kill us?”

“Whoever’s controlling the truck wants you afraid first,” Dean remarked.

“Mrs. Robinson, Cassie said that your husband saw the truck before he died,” Emma asked her, to which Mrs Robinson said nothing.

“Mom?” Cassie questioned her.

“Mm?” Mrs Robinson said as if she hadn’t been paying attention, looking up to see her daughter looking at her curiously. “Oh, Martin was under a lot of stress. You can’t be sure what he was seeing.”

“Well, after tonight, I think we can be reasonably sure that he was seeing a truck,” Dean quipped. “What happened tonight, you and Cassie are marked. Okay? And your daughter could die. So, if you know something, now would be a really good time to tell us about it.”

“Dean….” Cassie began, trying to stop him.

“Yes,” Mrs Robinson said suddenly. “Yes, he said he saw a truck.”

“Did he know who it belonged to?” Sam asked.

“He thought he did,” she answered.

“Who was that?” Dean asked.

“Cyrus. A man named Cyrus,” Mrs Robinson said. Recognising the name, Dean took the computer article from his pocket, showing Mrs Robinson the picture.

“Is this Cyrus?” he asked.

“Cyrus Dorian died more than 40 years ago,” Mrs Robinson said in response.

“How do you know he died, Mrs. Robinson?” Dean said with a shocked expression while Mrs Robinson looked guilty. “The paper said he went missing. How do you know he died?”

“We were all very young,” Mrs Robinson said, beginning to tell the story. “I dated Cyrus a while, but I was also seeing Martin. In secret, of course. Interracial couples didn’t go over too well then. When I broke it off with Cyrus, and when he found out about Martin… I don’t know, he… he changed. His hatred…. His hatred was frightening.”

“The string of murders,” Sam muttered to Dean.

“There were rumors. People of color disappearing in some kind of a truck. But nothing was ever done,” Mrs Robinson continued, beginning to cry. “Martin and I, we were, uh, going to be married in that little church near here. But last minute, we decided to elope, cause we didn’t want the attention.”

“And Cyrus?” Dean questioned.

“The day we set for the wedding was… the day someone set fire to the church,” Mrs Robinson said, sobbing heavily now. “There was a children’s choir practicing in there. They all died.”

“Did the attacks stop after that?” Emma asked softly.

“No,” Mrs Robinson answered. “There was one more. One night, that truck came for Martin. Cyrus beat him something terrible. But Martin, you see, Martin got loose. And he started hitting Cyrus, and he just kept hitting him and hitting him.”

“Why didn’t he call the cops?” Dean asked.

“This was forty years ago!” Mrs Robinson explained, giving Dean an odd look. “He called on his friends, Clayton Solmes and Jimmy Anderson, and they put Cyrus’ body into the truck and rolled it into the swamp at the edge of this land, and all three of them kept that secret all this years!”

“And now all three are gone,” Sam said.

“So is Mayor Todd,” Dean added. “Now, he said that you, of all people, would know that he is not a racist. Why would he say that?”

“He was a good man,” Mrs Robinson said. “He was a young deputy back then, investigating Cyrus’ disappearance. Once he figured out what Martin and the others had done, he… he did nothing. Because he also knew what Cyrus had done.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cassie asked, finally speaking up since her mother had begun this story.

“I thought I was protecting them,” Mrs Robinson said, her voice almost inaudible as she was crying heavily again now. “And now there’s no one left to protect.”

“Yes, there is,” Dean said with a pointed look at Cassie. Mrs Robinson turned her own tear filled eyes on her daughter, the only person she had left now, and took her hand in hers.

@~~>~~~

Ready to put this case, and more importantly this town behind them, the group were stood outside preparing to finish this, Emma sat in the passenger seat of the car while Sam and Dean were stood talking beside it.

“My life was so simple,” Sam said randomly. “Just school. Exams. Papers on polycentric cultural norms.”

“So, I guess I saved you from a boring existence,” Dean said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, occasionally, I miss boring,” Sam said, a pause between the two for a moment.

“Alright, so, this killer truck….” Dean began, making Sam laugh.

“I miss conversations that didn’t start with ‘this killer truck’,” Sam said, making Dean laugh this time.

“Alright, well, this Cyrus guy….” Dean said, his tone turning serious.

“Yeah,” Sam said, recognising that tone in Dean’s voice and putting the same in his.

“Evil on a level that infected even his truck,” Dean continued. “And when he died, the swamp became his tomb. And the spirit was dormant for forty years.”

“So, what woke it up?” Sam questioned.

“The construction on his house,” Dean answered. “Or, the destruction.”

“Right,” Dean said. “Demolition or remodeling can awaken spirits, make ‘em restless. Like that theater in Illinois.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “And the guy who tears down the family homestead, Harold Todd, is the same guy that kept Cyrus’ murder quiet and unsolved.”

“So, now his spirit is awakened, and out for blood.”

“Yeah, I guess. Who knows what ghosts are thinking anyway?”

“You know you’re gonna have to dredge that body up from the swamp, right?”

Dean strained a smile, the thought just occurring to him, as Cassie walked out to them.

“Hey,” Dean said to her.

“Hey,” Cassie replied. “She’s asleep. Now what?”

“Well, you stay put, and look after her,” Dean told her. “Sam will be here with you, and we’ll be back. Don’t leave the house.”

“Don’t go getting all authoritative on me,” Cassie said with a sly smile. “I hate it.”

“Don’t leave the house, please?” Dean corrected, smiling himself. But when he turned to the car, saw the way Emma quickly spun her head back round from watching him, his smile soon left. He quickly walked from Cassie’s side, not looking back as he got in the drivers seat and left to finish this.

There was complete silence in the car on the drive to their hunt spot. Dean kept glancing over at Emma, her eyes glued to the fast passing scenery. He knew she knew he was watching her, but still she made no attempt to turn his way.

“Emma, I….” Dean tried after a minute.

“Don’t, Dean,” Emma quickly interrupted. “Just drive.”

Dean gave up, turning back to face the road and driving the rest of the way in silence, as requested.

@~~>~~~

Their silent drive had taken Dean and Emma to a swap at the edge of town where Mrs Robinson had told them Cyrus and his truck had been buried all those years ago. In order to burn the body and send the spirit back to hell where he belonged, Dean was using a tow truck to dredge the black monster truck up from it’s watery grave.

“Alright, let’s get her up,” Emma called to Dean, guiding him from nearby. “Alright, little more, little more. Little more.”

With a final chugging pull, Dean managed to pull the submerged truck fully from the swampy water.

“Alright, stop,” Emma called, Dean immediately putting the brakes on and getting out. “Nice.”

“Hell, yeah,” Dean replied.

“Now you know what we all see in you,” Emma muttered.

“What?” Dean said.

“You know, me, Cassie, all the other fools that get involved with you.”

“Emma, don’t be like that.”

“I’m not being like anything,” Emma said, opening the trunk. “I just wanna get this done, Dean. Alright, what am I getting?”

“Gas, flashlight,” Dean listed off with a sigh.

“Got it, got it,” Emma replied to each one.

“Alright, let’s get this done,” Dean said.

“Happily,” Emma said, closing the truck, her and Dean heading back towards the driver’s side of the truck. Opening the door cautiously, the pair found the decomposing skeleton of Cyrus Dorian.

“Alright, let’s get to it,” Dean said, disgusted.

Both of them really not liking the lengths they had to go through, they carefully took the corpse out of the truck, laying it down nearby and dousing it in gasoline and salt before watching as it burnt.

“Think that’ll do it?” Emma said. Her question was answered as the ghost truck, the one that had already killed others recently, roared into life in front of them.

“I guess not,” Dean said somewhat calmly.

“So, burning the body had no effect on that thing?” Emma yelled at him.

“Oh, sure it did,” Dean replied. “Now it’s really pissed.”

“But Cyrus’ ghost is gone, right, Dean?” Emma said, hoping for the answer she wanted.

“Apparently not the part that’s fused with the truck,” Dean said, heading back towards the car.

“Where are you going?” Emma called after him.

“I’m going for a little ride,” Dean said.

“What?” Emma almost shrieked.

“I’m gonna lead that thing away,” Dean said before pointing to the truck they had moments ago pulled from the swamp. “That rusted piece of crap, you’ve gotta burn it.”

“How the hell am I supposed to burn a truck, Dean?” Emma yelled.

“I don’t know. Figure something out,” Dean said, throwing their ‘bag of tricks’ at her and getting into the car.

“Figure something…?” Emma began, watching with an angry sigh as Dean sped down the road, the truck hot on his tail.

With another sigh, Emma sat herself down beside the burnt out ashes of the body they had burnt, flipping frantically through John’s journal. She was doing this for a couple of minutes, a map open at her side as well, when her cell phone rang.

“Hey, you gotta give me a minute,” Emma said to who she knew was Dean on the other end.

“I don’t have a minute!” Dean called back. “What are we doing?”

“Uh… let me get back to you,” Emma said, hanging up the phone.

Dean hung up his end, watching in his rear view mirror as the truck got closer and closer.

At the swamp, Emma still had her phone out, someone different on the other end this time.

“Sam! Is Cassie there?” Emma said to him, pausing as he spoke into her ear.

“Sam, just put her on the goddamn phone!” Emma yelled at him, again pauses as he passed the phone to Cassie.

“Hey, Cassie? It’s Emma,” she said. “Okay, I need some information, and it has to be exactly right.”

Out on the highway, Dean was still trying to outrun the killer truck when his cell phone rang, immediately answering it.

“Alright, Dean?” Emma’s voice said from the other end.

“This better be good!” Dean called back.

“Where are you?” Emma asked.

“I’m in the middle of nowhere, with a killer truck on my ass! Dean replied sarcastically. “I mean, it’s like it knows I put the torch to Cyrus!”

“Dean, Dean, listen to me, it’s important,” Emma said, trying to stop his ranting. “I have to know exactly where you are.”

“Decatur Road,” Dean answered as he passed a street sign. “About two miles off the highway.”

“Okay, headed east?” Emma asked.

“Yes!” Dean yelled back just as the truck slammed into the back of his car, knocking him forwards. “Oh, you son of a bitch!”

“Okay, uh, turn right. Up ahead, turn right,” Emma told him, Dean doing just that with the truck following close behind. “You make the turn?”

“Yeah, I made the turn!” Dean said. “You’re gonna need to move this thing along a little faster!”

“Alright, you see a road up ahead?” Emma said, staying relatively calm despite Dean’s yelling.

“No!” Dean said before checking the street in front of him again. “What… wait, yes, I see it!”

“Okay, turn left,” Emma told him.

“What?” Dean said, because the truck driving on his left side, right where he needed to make a turn. Pressing down hard on his brakes, Dean’s car came to a quick stop, letting the truck pass by him before making the turn. It wasn’t long, however, until the truck was back on track and chasing him again.

“Alright, now what?” Dean said into the phone.

“You need to go exactly seven-tenths of a mile and stop,” Emma told him.

“Stop?” Dean questioned.

“Exactly seven-tenths, Dean,” Emma repeated.

Continuing to drive down the road, Dean watched his odometer carefully, watching as the numbers flicked over and he drove exactly seven-tenths, coming to an abrupt stop inside the foundations of an old building and screeching until he turned, facing the now motionless truck.

“Dean, you still there?” Emma’s voice asked in his ear.

“Yeah,” Dean said.

“What’s happening?” Emma asked him.

“It’s just staring at me,” Dean told him. “What do I do?”

“Just what you are doing. Bringing it to you,” Emma said. Dean watched closely, taking the phone from his ear, as the truck suddenly began to move, speeding towards his parked car.

As the truck came closer to him, Dean squeezed his eyes shut tight, expecting a collision. But instead of crashing into him, the car simple drove through him, shattering into thousands of pieces before disappearing into nothing.

Knowing the expected collision had not happened, Dean opened his eyes and looked round confused at the empty field in front of him.

“Dean?” he heard Emma’s actually worried voice call out distantly from the phone on the dashboard. “You still there? Dean?”

Shock still evident on his features, Dean slowly put the phone to his ear.

“Where’d it go?” Dean asked dumbly.

“Dean, you’re where the church was,” Emma told him.

“What church?” Dean asked.

“The place Cyrus burned down,” Emma said. “Murdered all those kids.”

“Not a whole lot left,” Dean said, looking around at the ruins of the building he was in.

“Church ground is hallowed ground, whether the church is still there or not,” Emma told him. “Evil spirits cross over hallowed ground, sometimes they’re destroyed. So, I figured maybe that would get rid of it.”

“Maybe?” Dean cried. “Maybe?! What if you were wrong?”

“Honestly, that thought hadn’t occurred to me,” Emma said, her tone clearly furious as she slammed the phone down. Staring at the dead phone in his hand, Dean hung up as well.

“ ‘Well, that honestly didn’t occur to me’,” Dean said, mimicking Emma before slamming his hand against the steering wheel. “I knew she was pissed, but….”

@~~>~~~

Next morning, now this case was over, the group were getting ready to leave another town, leaving more people who’s lives they had saved and effected. Sam was sat in the car, waiting for his brother, who was stood saying his goodbye to Cassie.

“My mother says to tell you thanks again,” Cassie said, to which Dean simply nodded. “This is a better goodbye than last time.”

“Yeah,” Dean said softly before hugging his ex-girlfriend affectionately, not knowing that Sam was watching from the car with an odd look in his eyes.

Dean pulled away from Cassie, turning and heading back to the passenger seat of the car without looking back. Sam simply waved to her, putting the car in gear and driving away, Cassie watching them the whole time.

The two brothers drove away from Cassie and back to their motel. Sam had insisted on driving and he wouldn’t even look at his brother, and Dean noticed this. He had noticed this for a while now.

“Okay, what’s wrong with you?” Dean asked finally.

“What?” Sam asked, still not looking at Dean.

“You’ve been real pissed at me since we got here. What’s up?”

“If you don’t know, forget it,” Sam said, his voice cold. Dean looked into the backseat of the car and noticed for the first time that Emma wasn’t there. Some might have considered that odd, but not Dean. He was used to seeing Emma there when he turned, he didn’t even need to look anymore.

“Where’s Emma?” Dean asked.

“At the motel, packing,” Sam said, his voice even colder if that was possible. And he carried on driving, his eyes on the road and staying away from his brother from fear of what he might say to him.

@~~>~~~

Emma was in the motel room, packing her bags, when Dean walked in. She knew he had walked in, but she carried on packing, going along like he wasn’t there.

“Hey,” Dean said after a minute. But still, Emma didn’t look up. “Look, we need to talk,” he finished.

“Too right we do,” Emma said, finally looking up at him.

“Emma, I….” Dean began, but Emma held up a hand to cut him off.

“No. I’m gonna do the talking Dean. You’re gonna listen.” She paused for a second, closing her bag and moving to stand in front of Dean.

“I’m leaving,” she said finally.

“What?” Dean said, shock both in his voice and on his face.

“I’m going,” Emma continued for him. “I’m not coming on any more hunts with you. I’m going back to my normal life.”

“Look, Emma, I know this thing with Cassie has been….” Dean began, hoping to make this better and make her stay. But for once, this wouldn’t work on Emma.

“No. This isn’t about Cassie,” Emma said, and she laughed slightly, this whole situation still slightly comical to her. “I actually liked the girl. It’s about everything, and this just topped it off.”

“I’m sorry Emma,” Dean tried finally.

“You can say that as much as you want, I’m not staying,” Emma told him truthfully.

“But I mean it,” Dean said.

“But I don’t believe you,” Emma replied as she picked up her bag, ready to leave.

“Come on, Emma. You aren’t seriously gonna leave. You can’t,” Dean said, and Emma just stared at him.

“You really believe that don’t you,” Emma said, trying to keep calm. “After everything you’ve done, you really believe I’m gonna stay.”

“Yes, because I know you will,” Dean said confidently. Too confidently. Forgetting about trying to keep calm, Emma lost it and threw the bag in her hand across the room, causing Dean to dodge to stop it from hitting him.

“That’s what gets me about you Dean,” Emma exploded at him. “You think you can treat women, more precisely me, exactly how you want and I’m still gonna stick around. Well think again.”

“Emma, just calm down,” Dean said, moving further forward and gently grabbing her arm. Emma pushed him roughly away, not wanting to calm down at all.

“Don’t tell me to calm down Dean because I won’t,” she spat out at him. “I have had enough. More then any women can stand. I have stayed as long as I can.”

“You haven’t, or you wouldn’t be leaving now,” Dean said, anger beginning to seep into his own voice.

“No Dean. I have tried. I have done everything in my power, and you…. You still get me like this.” Emma could feel the tears coming, and she didn’t want them to escape. Not in front of him. Instead, she picked up her bag, ignoring Dean beside it.

“And I’m not gonna stick around for it to happen again,” she finished as she turned to leave.

“Emma, please,” Dean said desperately. “You can’t do this?”

“Why not Dean?” Emma asked, stopping near the door. “What is there for me to stick around?”

“Sam, for one,” Dean said, although he knew that wasn’t the real reason.

“He knows. And he understands why I’m leaving.”

“He might, but I don’t.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Emma said, still trying to hold back tears. “I’m begging you not to make this harder. I mean, this is you, Dean. I’ve known you my whole life. I’ve loved you my whole life. You were my first… everything, Dean. You were my first kiss, the first guy I slept with, and the first guy I fell in love with. The only guy I truly fell in love with.”

“If I really mean that much to you, why are you leaving?” Dean said, his voice almost desperate.

“I can’t do it Dean,” Emma said truthfully. “I can’t be around you and watch something like this happen again. I should have left after Layla and the whole reaper incident, but I couldn’t. I made myself believe you were different now, not the player I first started dating. But your not, and I can’t stay.”

Hearing her words, Dean felt angry. She had so little faith in him. He admitted that maybe he was a little bit of a player, but Emma was the girl he wanted to be with. The girl he had stuck with. And she had stuck with him, through thick and thin. But now something so stupid was going to break them apart.

“If you really wanna run away, then fine,” Dean said, reverting back to his usual self, stepping up to her and blocking all emotion.

“Don’t do that, Dean,” Emma yelled, pushing him away from her. “Do not make out like this is all my fault, because it is not. Not one bit of it. I’m the one that stuck around when every other girl would have run away. I’m the one that ignored every glance or flirty comment, because I knew it was just you. But I’m not the one who got us here. That was you Dean. All you. So for once in your life, take some responsibility for what you’ve done and don’t try and blame anyone but yourself.” Emma stopped as she felt the tears began to leak from her eyes despite herself.

“You need to grow up Dean,” Emma said, calming herself down. “You’re not that sixteen year old boy anymore. You can’t expect every girl to fall at your feet and do what you say. Because I for one won’t. I may not have been the cause of this, but I am the one who’s stopping it.”

Emma carried on walking to the door, leaving before the tears came in torrents. She held her hand against the doorknob, ready to open it.

“Please Emma….” Dean began, and Emma stopped, not turning round. “Don’t go.”

“Why not?” she asked again, knowing she would never get the answer she wanted to hear.

“Because I don’t want you to,” Dean began simply. “I’m too used to having you around. I love having you around. I love all your stupid jokes. I love waking up to you every morning.”

“But you don’t love me,” Emma said, turning to him and admitting the truth to herself. “Just the idea of me. I love you more than you will ever know Dean. I always will. But I can’t be around you.”

“Emma, I….” Dean began, but he didn’t know how to finish. Emma saw this and she walked over to him, holding his cheek gently.

“You can’t even say it, can you?” she told him before kissing him gently for the last time. “Goodbye, Dean Winchester.”

And with tears streaking down her cheeks, Emma left. And Dean didn’t try to stop her.

Why couldn’t he say it? It was three simply words. He knew he felt it. How he felt whenever he was close to her, it had to be love. But why couldn’t he say it. Why couldn’t he make her stay?

@~~>~~~

Outside of the motel room, Emma leant against the closed door, sliding to the floor as the tears came in floods. This was best for her, she knew that. Dean didn’t have the capacity to love anyone. But no matter what, she still loved him. Above anything else, she just wanted to turn round and crash back into that room. Run into his comforting arms and tell him it didn’t matter. She loved him and that was enough.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t, for the sake of her sanity. She’d go mad always thinking and wondering if he was with some other girl. And one thing she knew for sure is she wasn’t gonna let a man take advantage of her love. Not even a man like Dean Winchester.

Finally having no more tears to cry, Emma stood up, breathing deeply to compose herself. Wiping her eyes and picking up her bag, she walked away, not looking back once at her life with the Winchesters.


	14. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam has a premonition in which a man is killed, but the murder is made to look like a suicide. Sam convinces Dean that they must investigate the case. They enlist the help of Emma, who left town after Cassie, much to both Dean and Emma’s dismay, but the group are puzzled when they fail to find anything that indicates that the death was supernatural in nature. That is, until they find out that Max, the reclusive son of the first victim, has been using his recently acquired power of telekinesis to kill the family members that once abused him. Sam also discovers Max's mother was killed by the same fiery demon that took his own mom.

Up in a street in Saginaw, Michigan, a man was pulling into his garage after a day at work, switching off the gas and gathering his things. But as he tried to leave the car, things began happening of their own accord. The garage door closed behind him, the car doors locked him in and the key turned into the ignition, the car roaring to life. Soon, both the garage and the car began to fill with carbon monoxide.

Panicking and going into overdrive, the guy spluttered and coughed as he tried to pry the door open un successfully. He tried pulling at the keys, turning off the ignition, but that didn’t work either. Going to his last resort, the guy tried to cover the vents with his jacket, trying to stop the flow of the gas. But carbon monoxide still flowed out, filling the car and the garage around him.

“Help!” he screamed, pounding on the windows as his coughing got worse. “Somebody, help me! Somebody, help!”

But his screaming and pounding turned to be to no avail as his body gave up, the gas working as he slumped forward, dead.

Then, with a blinding white flash that was enough to give anyone a migraine, the scene suddenly turned into a motel room, Sam gasping awake, sweating, while Dean remained asleep.

“Dean,” Sam said, getting out of his bed and trying to wake his brother. “Dean.”

With a groan, Dean slowly came back to the land of the living while Sam rushed round the room, shoving things randomly into his bag.

“What are you doing, man?” Dean grumbled sleepily. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“We have to go,” Sam said, still packing.

“What’s happening?” Dean asked, getting out of bed.

“We have to go,” Sam simple repeated. “Right now.”

@~~>~~~

With their bags packed and Dean begrudgingly awake, the brothers were now speeding away from their motel and soft beds. While Dean drove, Sam on his phone beside him, he kept glancing back into backseat, whether consciously or subconsciously he didn’t know. It felt so strange to look back there and not see Emma. But the problem was, as much as he hated to think about it, he was the sole reason Emma had left.

“McCreedy,” Sam said into the phone, Dean pulling himself from his thoughts to listen. “Detective McCreedy, badge number 15A. And I’ve got a signal 480 in progress. I need the registered owner of a two-door Sedan, Michigan license plate, Mary, Frank, 6037.… Yeah, okay, just hurry.”

“Sammy, relax,” Dean said now Sam was on hold. “I’m sure it’s just a nightmare.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Sam said.

“No, I mean it. You know, a normal, everyday, naked-in-class nightmare,” Dean said. “This license plate, it won’t check out, you’ll see.”

“It felt different, Dean,” Sam retorted. “Real. Like when I dreamt about our old house and Jessica.”

“Well, yeah, that makes sense,” Dean said. “You’re dreamin’ about our house, your girlfriend. This guy in your dream, you ever seen him before?”

“No,” Sam said.

“No, exactly,” Dean said slightly smugly. “Why would you have premonitions about some random dude in Michigan?”

“I don’t know,” Sam answered.

“Me neither,” Dean said as Sam went back to his phone call.

“Yes, I’m here,” Sam said into the phone. “Jim Miller. Saginaw, Michigan.”

At the name of the town and city, Dean’s eyes went wide at the thought of just what was there beside their seemingly latest hunt.

“You have a street address? Got it. Thanks,” Sam said, writing down the information and hanging up the phone. “Checks out. How far are we?”

“We are not going to Saginaw,” Dean said.

“Dean, what if this is something,” Sam said. “More people could die.”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna be one of them if I step foot in Saginaw,” Dean replied.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Because that’s where Emma moved to,” Dean told him. “She will kill me on sight if she sees me.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate Dean,” Sam said with a roll of his eyes.

“Don’t exaggerate?!” Dean exclaimed. “You didn’t see her the last time we spoke.”

“Look, if she’s gonna kill you, you only have yourself to blame,” Sam said.

“And how do you figure that?” Dean said.

“All you had to do was tell the girl you love her and you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Sam, I don’t even….”

“Don’t say it Dean because I know you love her. You wouldn’t have kept her around for as long as you did if you didn’t.”

“You know me, Sammy. I don’t even know what love is.”

“Sure you do. It’s that feeling, Dean. The one you get whenever you’re around Emma. And do not try and tell me you haven’t felt it because I know you have. I saw it in your eyes when you two were together. When you were close, or when she was smacking you across the back of the head. I saw that look in your eyes. I’m your brother Dean. There are some things you can’t hide from me, no matter how hard you try to hide it from yourself.”

Dean, after Sam’s little speech, said nothing. The truth was that in some deep, dark recess of Dean’s mind that he had spent most of his life trying to block out, he knew Sam was right.

“Fine,” Sam said. “We’ll avoid all contact with Emma for the sake of you life. Now how far are we?”

“From Saginaw?” Dean said, happy to be back on the topic of the hunt.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Couple hours,” Dean answered.

“Drive faster,” Sam told him, Dean complying and stepping on the gas.

@~~>~~~

A few hours later, Sam and Dean pulled up outside Jim Miller’s house and knew immediately that they were too late. They weren’t the only ones there. Police and ambulances were parked round the block, the nosy neighbours were stood watching the scene, and the paramedics were putting Jim’s body in a body bag while the police spoke with Jim’s family.

Pulling up around the corner, away from all the police cars and ambulances, Sam and Dean parked up and got out the car, blending into the observing crowd.

“What happened?” Dean said casually to a nearby woman.

“Suicide,” she answered. “I can’t believe it.”

“Did you know him?” Sam asked.

“I saw him every Sunday at St. Augustine’s,” she said. “He always seems… seemed so normal. I guess you never know what’s going on behind closed doors.”

“Yeah, I guess not,” Dean said.

“How did… how are they saying it happened?” Sam stumbled out.

“I heard they found him in the garage. Locked inside his car with the engine running,” the woman said, Sam and Dean exchanging a look as his vision was described to them.

“Do you know about what time they found him?” Sam asked.

“Oh, it just happened about an hour or two ago,” the woman said. “Oh, his poor family. I can’t even imagine what they’re going through.”

Sam and Dean looked over at the family in question, stood in the doorway to their house. A middle aged woman, more than likely Jim’s wife, stood sobbing in front of the police officers. With a sad and disturbed look on his face, Sam walked away, over towards the car, and Dean followed him.

“Sam, we got here as fast as we could,” Dean said, trying to comfort his brother.

“Not fast enough,” Sam retorted. “It just doesn’t make any sense, man. Why would I even have these premonitions, unless there was a chance that I could stop them from happening?”

“I don’t know,” Dean answered truthfully.

“So,” Sam said with a deep sight. “What do you think killed him?”

“Maybe the guy just killed himself,” Dean said. “You know, maybe there’s nothing supernatural going on at all.”

“I’m telling you, I watched it happen,” Sam argued. “He was murdered by something, Dean. It trapped him in the garage.”

“Well, what?” Dean asked. “A spirit, a poltergeist, what?”

“I don’t know what it was. I don’t know why I’m having these dreams, I don’t know what the hell is happening, Dean,” Sam said, to which Dean just stared at him. “What?”

“Nothing, man,” Dean said. “I’m just worried about you.”

“Well, don’t look at me like that,” Sam said.

“I’m not lookin’ at you like anything. Though I gotta say, you look like crap.”

“Nice. Thanks.”

“Yeah, well…. Come on, let’s just pick this up in the morning. We’ll check out the house, we’ll talk to the family.”

“Dean, you saw them, they’re devastated. They’re not gonna wanna talk to us.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But I think I know who they will talk to.”

“Who?” Sam asked. Dean simply smirked.

@~~>~~~

The next morning, Sam and Dean were stood outside the Miller house, posing as the only people Dean thought would be able to speak to the Miller’s now. Both were stood waiting for their knock to be answered, looking more presently than they ever did, Sam’s hair slicked back neatly.

“This has got to be a whole new low for us,” Sam mumbled to his brother, who just smiled at him as the door was opened by Jim’s brother, Roger Miller. And what Roger saw on his doorstep were two young ministers.

“Good afternoon,” Dean said to Roger with a smile. “I’m Father Simmons, this is Father Frehley. We’re new junior priests over at St. Augustine’s. May we come in?”

Roger nodded, letting Sam and Dean into the house.

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Sam said as Roger closed the door behind them.

“It’s in difficult times like these when the Lord’s guidance is most needed,” Dean spieled off.

“Look, if you wanna pitch your whole Lord-has-a-plan thing, fine. But don’t pitch it to me. My brother is dead,” Roger said as Jim’s wife came in from the kitchen, overhearing them.

“Roger, please,” she warned her brother in law.

“Excuse me,” Roger said to Sam and Dean before turning to leave.

“I’m sorry about my brother-in-law,” Ms Miller said to them. “He’s just so upset about Jim’s death. Would you like some coffee?”

“That’d be great,” Dean said, him and Sam sitting on the couch in the living room and waiting while Ms Miller served them coffee.

“It was wonderful of you to stop by,” Ms Miller said as she handed them their drinks. “The support of the church means so much right now.”

“Of course. After all, we are all God’s children,” Dean said, fully into his roll. Sam gave Dean a strange look as Ms Miller walked away from them. Once she was out of sight, Dean ate a mini hot dog from a platter on the table in front of him, Sam scoffing.

“What?” Dean questioned.

“Just tone it down a little bit, Father,” Sam said as Ms Miller came back, sitting beside Dean who spoke with his mouth full.

“So, Ms. Miller, did your husband have a history of depression?”

“Nothing like that. We had our ups and downs, like everyone. But we were happy,” she said, beginning to cry. “I just don’t understand how Jim could do something like that.”

“I’m so sorry you had to find him like that,” Sam said.

“Actually, our son, Max, he was the one who found him,” Ms Miller said, pointing to the teenage boy who was sat alone in the corner of the other room.

“Do you mind if maybe I go talk to him?” Sam asked.

“Oh, thank you, Father,” Ms Miller said, Sam smiling and going over to introduce him to Max, leaving Dean alone with Ms Miller.

“Ms. Miller, you have a lovely home,” Dean said to her. “How long have you lived here?”

“We moved in about five years ago,” Ms Miller answered.

“Hm,” Dean said. “You know, the only problem with these old houses… I bet you have all kinds of headaches.”

“Like what?” Ms Miller asked.

“Well, weird leaks. Electrical shortages. Odd settling noises at night, that kind of thing.”

“No, nothing like that. It’s been perfect.”

“Hm. May I use your restroom?”

“Oh, sure. It’s just up the stairs.”

“Okay,” Dean said, taking another mini hot dog from the table before heading up the stairs.

Over in the dining room Sam was still talking with Max.

“So, what was your dad like?” Sam asked

“Just a normal dad,” Max answered.

“Yeah?” Sam said. “And you live at home now?”

“Yeah. I’m tryin’ to save up for school, but it’s hard,” Max said, leaving a short pause before Sam spoke again.

“So, when you found your dad….”

“I woke up. I heard the engine running. I don’t know why he did it.”

“I know it’s rough. Losing a parent. Especially when you don’t have all the answers.”

@~~>~~~

Upstairs, Dean was nowhere near the bathroom. He was instead looking round, making sure no one else was there before scanning over one of the bedrooms with an infrared thermal scanner. However, he found nothing unusual. Nothing to tell them what spirit or demon might have been behind this attack, if any.

Hearing footsteps out in the corridor, Dean quickly put away the scanner as the sounds got closer. There was no need though as it was Sam who turned the corner into the room.

“Anything?” he asked his brother.

“Zip,” Dean said with a shake of his head as the pair made their way back downstairs.

@~~>~~~

Back in their motel room, and in their regular attire, Sam and Dean were discussing the little they had found, Dean cleaning his weapons.

“So, what do you have?” Dean questioned.

“A whole lot of nothing,” Sam Answered. “Nothing bad has happened to the Miller house since it was built.”

“What about the land?” Dean said.

“No graveyards, battlefields, tribal lands, or any other kind of atrocity on or near the property,” Sam said.

“Hey, man, I told you I searched that house up and down. There were no cold spots, no sulfur scent, nada.”

“And the family said everything was normal?”

“Well, I mean, if there was a demon or a poltergeist in there, don’t you think somebody would’ve noticed something? I used the infrared thermal scanner, man, there was nothing.”

Thinking over what his brother had just pointed out and the current difficulty of this case, Sam took out his cell phone, dialling a number.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked.

“Calling in a little help,” Sam answered. Knowing just what his brother meant by that, Dean stepped forward and took the phone from him. “What?” Sam questioned.

“I know who you’re calling and no way,” Dean said. “We spoke about this.”

“Yeah, that was until we had no idea what we were up against,” Sam retorted. “She can help. You know it.”

“You really think she’ll help. She said she didn’t want anything more to do with these hunt.”

“You know Emma. If someone needs help, she’ll be down like a shot.”

“Down? You mean you want her to come here?”

“Yeah.”

“Then this is definitely a waste of time. She won’t come.”

“She will if she knows it’s important.”

“How do you even have her number anyway?” Dean asked, Sam hesitating slightly. “Sam.”

“She rang me a couple of weeks ago,” Sam said nervously.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Dean explained.

“She asked me not to,” Sam said, his voice still nervous.

“See, so what makes you think she’ll come down?” Dean asked.

“She will, now give me the phone,” Sam said, holding his hand out for the phone. Reluctantly, Dean handed over the phone, Sam finishing dialling.

@~~>~~~

Emma Gray was sat on the couch of a house that belonged to a friend who lived in Michigan, flicking absently through a magazine. Truth be told, this was how she had spent most of her days since she had left the Winchester boys. She had looked for a job, but having spent most of her life hunting on the road, she didn’t really have any experience in jobs in the real world.

As much as at the time she had knew that leaving her hunting life and Dean Winchester behind was the right thing to do, she had gotten less and less sure as each day had passed. Like when Sam had been at Stanford, she still kept in regular contact with him, calling him pretty much every day. And with each phone call Sam had tried to find new ways of getting her to come back, telling her that both him and Dean missed her and that Dean truly was sorry for everything that had happened, even if he never said it.

When her cell phone beside her rang, Emma picked it up, not looking up from her magazine as she answered it.

“Hello?” she said into the receiver.

“Hey Em,” Sam’s voice spoke from the other end.

“Sam,” Emma said with a smile she knew Sam couldn’t see, putting down her magazine. “Hi. How are you?”

“Good,” Sam said. “Listen, Emma, I know I promised you I’d never do this, but I need your help.”

“Sam….” Emma began.

“Emma, this could be serious,” Sam interrupted her. “We have no idea what we’re up against. Please.”

“Fine. What do you need?”

“You, actually. I was hoping you could meet with us. We’re in Saginaw.”

“No way. I was willing to help Sam, but not to see you. See him.”

“Come on Emma. This is a one off. Just meet us, help us solve this, and you can go back to your normal life. I promise. And I mean it this time.”

“Okay,” Emma said, giving in. “Just this once. Where are you?”

@~~>~~~

Following the address Sam gave her, Emma stood outside their motel room, her knock answered by Sam, luckily.

“Hey,” Sam said with a smile.

“Hey Sammy,” Emma replied.

“Now that’s the only thing I haven’t missed,” Sam said, making Emma smile as he pulled her into a hug. Pulling apart, Emma stepped through the threshold of the room, glancing over at Dean as he glanced at her, but that was the only acknowledgement she gave to him being in the room.

“Okay, so what’s the problem?” Emma asked with a strained smile. “No offence, but I wanna get this sorted as quick as we can.”

“Did you hear about Jim Miller?” Sam asked her.

“Yeah,” Emma answered. “He killed himself. What does that have to do with you guys?”

“Well, I don’t think he killed himself,” Sam told her. “I had another one of my dreams, about Jim’s death.”

“Well, have you checked it out?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“And….” Emma encouraged him to continue.

“And there was nothing,” Dean answered for him, forcing Emma to acknowledge the other Winchester. “Nothing on the land, or near the property. And nothing in the house. No cold spots, no sulphur scent, nada. Even the family said everything was normal. I don’t think this really classes as our problem.”

“So, what, you think Jim Miller killed himself?” Sam argued. “And my dream was just some sort of freakish coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Dean said. “But I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing supernatural about that house.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, grimacing slightly and massaging his temple against a growing headache. “Well, you know, maybe, uh… maybe it has nothing to do with the house. Maybe, it’s just, uh… gosh, maybe it’s connected to Jim in some other way.”

Sam’s slight grimaces and small amount pain soon exploded into something much larger, clutching his head in almost agony.

“What’s wrong with you?” Emma asked, true concern in her voice.

“Yeah… my head!” Sam answered, falling to his knees and screaming in pain. Acting simultaneously and actually on the same thought, Dean and Emma immediately rushed to Sam’s side, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“Sam?” Emma cried out, trying to gain his full attention. “Hey. Hey! What’s goin’ on? Talk to me.”

Sam shot Dean and Emma a horrified look before the images behind his eyes changed.

A brightly lit kitchen in a small flat and Roger Miller entered with an arm full of groceries. And like any other man, the first thing he grabbed for in his kitchen was a bottle of beer. His head tilted back as he took a deep swig from the beer, Roger failed to notice the dark figure that walked past the door. Neither did he notice the latch on the window slide click open.

Feeling the draft, Roger turned and closed the window again, sliding the lock closed. When he turned back to unpack his groceries, the window again clicked open, the lock sliding free to do so. Confused, Roger tried to close the window against the cold night breeze, but it wouldn’t budge.

Sticking his head out of the window to find the problem, Roger didn’t have time to move before the window came slamming down across his neck, blood splattering up the window as the force sliced right through his neck.

With another blinding white light, Sam’s vision came back to the motel room, looking up terrified at the concerned Dean and Emma.

“It’s happening again,” Sam said, his breath coming out in gasps. “Something’s gonna kill Roger Miller.”

@~~>~~~

The minute Sam had pulled out of the vision and gathered his strength again, him, Dean and Emma had jumped into the car, speeding down the road, Sam on his cell phone again.

“Roger Miller. No, no, just the address, please. Okay. Thanks,” Sam said weakly into the phone before hanging up and speaking to Dean and Emma. “450 West Grove, Apartment 1120.”

“You okay?” Emma asked Sam as Dean nodded his response.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

“If you’re gonna hurl, I’ll pull the car over, you know, ‘cause the upholstery….” Dean said, seeing the almost pale green color to his brothers complexion.

“I’m fine,” Sam repeated.

“Alright,” Dean said.

“Just drive,” Sam said.

“Alright,” Dean repeated, leaving the car in silence.

“I’m scared, guys,” Sam said into the silence with a sigh. “These nightmares weren’t bad enough, now I’m seein’ things when I’m awake? And these visions, or whatever, they’re getting more intense. And painful.”

“Come on, man, it’ll be alright,” Dean said, trying to be reassuring the best he could. “You’ll be fine.”

“What is it about the Millers?” Sam asked. “Why am I connected to them? Why am I watching them die? Why the hell is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out, okay?” Emma said, her tone reassuring as well. “We’ve faced the unexplainable, this is just another thing.”

“No. It’s never been us,” Sam said. “It’s never been in the family like this. Tell the truth, you guys can’t tell me this doesn’t freak you out.”

At his question, Dean and Emma paused, actually holding eye contact as they glanced at each other. And first the first time, they both knew they were thinking exactly the same thing.

“This doesn’t freak me out,” Dean lied.

“Not at all,” Emma lied.

@~~>~~~

Outside Roger’s apartment, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled up in time to see Roger heading towards his home with a bag of groceries.

“Hey, Roger!” Sam called to him.

“Hey, hold up a second,” Dean called out.

“What are you guys, missionaries? Leave me alone,” Roger said, continuing to walk away from him.

“Please!” Sam said, he, Dean and Emma getting out of the car and following Roger. “Hey, Roger, we’re tryin’ to help! Please! Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!”

“I don’t want your help,” Roger said, closing and locking the main door behind him and turning his back on the three.

“We’re not priests!” Sam yelled after him. “You’ve gotta listen to us!”

“Roger, you’re in danger!” Dean yelled as well, but Roger still didn’t turn round.

“Come on! Come on, come on!” Dean called to Sam and Emma, the group running round the side of the building. Coming to a metal gate, this didn’t stop them very long as Dean kicked it down.

Running up the fire escape, Sam, Dean and Emma weren’t in time as half way up, they heard the thud as the window slammed shut.

Running faster up the last flight, they reached Roger’s window to find blood splattered across it, his body bon the inside and his head in the plant pot on the outside. The trio stared in disbelief at the scene in front of them, a flustered Dean handing a couple of rags to Sam and Emma, the former looking sick to her stomach.

“Here, start wiping down your fingerprints,” Dean told them. “We don’t want the cops to know we were here. Go, go, come on.”

Sam and a reluctant Emma took the rags from Dean, the three of them wiping down everything they had touched.

“I’m gonna take a look inside,” Dean said, climbing into a nearby window while Emma continued to stare at what was on the outside.

“Why oh why did I agree to get back into this?” Emma said, cringing. “Even a one off.”

@~~>~~~

After Sam and Emma had finished wiping the place down and Dean had done a quick but thorough search inside, the group were now heading back to the car.

“I’m tellin’ you, there was nothing in there,” Dean said. “There’s no signs either, just like the Millers’ house.”

“I saw something in the vision, like a dark shape,” Sam told them. “Something was stalking Roger.”

“Well, whatever it was, we can be sure it’s not connected to their house,” Dean said.

“No, it’s connected to the family itself. So, what do you think we got?” Sam asked as they got back into the car. “A vengeful spirit?”

“Yeah, there’s a few that have been known to latch onto families, follow ‘em for years,” Emma said.

“Banshees,” Sam added.

“Basically like a curse,” Emma Continued. “So, maybe Roger and Jim Miller got involved in something heavy. Something curse-worthy.”

“And now something’s out for revenge,” Sam said. “And the men in their family are dying. Hey, you think Max is in danger?”

“Let’s figure it out before he is,” Dean said, starting the car.

“Well, I know one thing I have in common with these people,” Sam said.

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“Both our families are cursed,” Sam answered.

“Our family’s not cursed,” Dean said. “We just… had our dark spots.”

“Our dark spots are pretty dark,” Sam said with a small laugh.

“You’re… dark,” Dean said, starting ton drive away.

@~~>~~~

With the second Miller family death, Sam and Dean had again donned their minister outfits and were stood talking with Max.

“My mom’s resting,” Max told them. “She’s pretty wrecked.”

“Of course,” Dean said.

“All these people kept coming with, like, casseroles. I finally had to tell them all to go away,” Max said, gesturing to the dining table behind them which was covered with all different kinds of casserole dishes. “You know, ‘cause nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like a tuna casserole.”

With a small laugh, Sam and Dean sat down as Max motioned to the couch.

“How you holdin’ up?” Sam asked Max.

“I’m okay,” Max answered.

“Your dad and your uncle were close?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Max said. “I mean, they were brothers. They used to hang out all the time when I was little.”

“But not lately much?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… we used to be neighbors when I was kid. And we lived across town in this house, and Uncle Roger lived next door, so he was over all the time.”

“Right. So, how was it in that house when you were a kid?”

“It was fine. Why?”

“All good memories?” Dean added. “Do you remember anything unusual? Something involving your father and your uncle, maybe?”

“What do you… why do you ask?” Max asked.

“Just a question,” Dean said.

“No,” Max said. “There was nothing. We were totally normal. Happy.”

“Good. That’s good,” Dean said. “Well, you must be exhausted. We should take off.”

“Right,” Sam said, looking over at Max. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Max said, guiding them out of the house.

Outside, Sam and Dean walked back to the car and where Emma was stood.

“Nobody’s family is totally normal and happy,” Dean said of Max’s comment. “Did you see when he was talkin’ about his old house?”

“Sounded scared,” Sam said.

“Yeah, Max isn’t tellin’ us everything,” Sam said with a nod. “I say we go find the old neighbourhood, and find out what life was really like at the Millers’.”

Watching the pair walk up to her, Emma couldn’t help but laugh at them.

“What?” Dean asked her.

“I just can’t believe you two would stoop so low as to pose as ministers,” Emma said through her laughter. “You look ridiculous.”

“Shut up,” both brothers said, which only made Emma laugh harder.

@~~>~~~

Looking into the Millers’ past, Sam, Dean and Emma were stood in everyday clothes in their old neighborhood talking to one of the family’s old neighbors.

“Have you lived in the neighbourhood very long?” Sam asked him.

“Yeah, almost twenty years now,” he answered. “It’s nice and quiet. Why, you lookin’ to buy?”

“No, no,” Sam said. “Actually, we were just wondering if you might recall a family that used to live right across the street, I believe.”

“Yeah, the Millers,” Dean added. “They had a little boy named Max.”

“Yeah, I remember. The brother had the place next door,” he said, pointing to a house across the street. “So, uh, what’s this about? That poor kid okay?”

“What do you mean?” Emma asked.

“Well, in my life, I’ve never seen a child treated like that,” he said. “I mean, I’d hear Mr. Miller yellin’ and throwin’ things clear across the street. He was a mean drunk. He used to beat the tar out of Max. Bruises, broke his arm two times that I know of.”

“And this was going on regularly?” Emma asked.

“Practically every day,” he answered. “In fact, that thug brother of his was just as likely to take a swing at the boy, but the worst part was the stepmother. She’d just stand there, checked out, never lifted a finger to protect him. I must have called the police seven or eight times, never did any good.”

“Now, you said stepmother,” Dean said.

“I think his real mom died,” he said. “Some sort of accident. A car accident, I think.” The neighbor turned to Sam, looking worriedly at him.

“Are you okay, there?” he asked him, making Dean and Emma turned to him as well. He was clutching at his head and breathing sharply, clearly in pain.

“Yeah,” Sam answered with difficulty.

“Thanks for your time,” Emma said, having seen him in this type of pain before and knowing they needed to get him away soon.

“Yeah, thank you,” Sam said as Emma helped him walk. Leaning up against the car, Sam looked terrified as he was again sent headlong into another vision.

It was in the Miller’s kitchen, Ms. Miller chopping vegetables while she spoke to Max.

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Ms Miller said. “You know I never did anything.”

“That’s right,” Max said, tears of pain clouding his vision. “You didn’t do anything. You didn’t stop them, not once!”

The emotions hitting almost critical, the knife lay still on the cutting board suddenly began to quiver and levitate into the air.

“How did you…?” Ms. Miller began to ask before the knife flew through the air towards her, making her back up in to the wall and pinning her there as the knife stopped barely a centimeter away from her eye.

“Max, please!” Ms. Miller sobbed.

“For every time you stood there and watched,” Max almost yelled. “Pretending it wasn’t happening!”

“I’m sorry!” Ms. Miller continued to sob.

“No, you’re not,” Max said. “You just don’t want to die.”

But still, Max pulled the knife back slightly, Ms. Miller breathing s soft sigh of relief.

Her relief, however, was short lived as the knife flew back to her, into her eye and straight through her head, pinning her to the wall for real. Max stood, staring at his step-mom with a shocked look on his face as if even he was unsure of how and why this had happened.

@~~>~~~

With their newfound insight into the case, Sam, Dean and Emma were driving towards the Miller house.

“Max is doing it,” Sam repeated to the two. “Everything I’ve been seeing.”

“You sure about this?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, I saw,” Sam answered.

“How’s he pullin’ it off?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. It looked like telekinesis,” Sam answered him.

“So, he’s psychic?” Dean said. “He’s a spoon-bender?”

“I didn’t even realize it, but this whole time he was there,” Sam said, partly to Dean and Emma, but more to himself. “He was outside of the garage when his dad died, he was in the apartment when his uncle died. These visions, this whole time, I wasn’t connecting to the Millers, I was connecting to Max. The thing I don’t get is why, man? I guess because we’re so alike?”

“What are you talking about?” Emma said. “He’s nothing like you.”

“Well, we both have psychic abilities,” Sam said. “We’re both….”

“Both what?” Emma interrupted. “Sam, Max is a monster. He’s already killed two people, and now he’s gunnin’ for a third.”

“Well, with what he went through, the beatings,” Sam said. “To want revenge on those people, I’m sorry, I hate to say it, but it’s not that insane.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t justify murdering your entire family,” Emma told him.

“Emma….” Sam began again, but was again interrupted, this time by Dean.

“Look, Sam, he’s no different than anything else we’ve hunted. Alright, we’ve gotta end him,” Dean said, pulling up in the car and shutting it off.

“We’re not gonna kill Max,” Sam said.

“Then what?” Dean questioned. “I hand him over to the cops and say, ‘Lock him up, officer, he kills with the power of his mind’.”

“Forget it. No way, man,” Sam argued.

“Sam….” Dean began, only this time Sam was the one to interrupt.

“Dean. He’s a person. We can talk to him,” he said, trying to get through to his stubborn brother. “Hey, promise me you’ll follow my lead on this one.”

“Alright, fine,” Dean said after a slight pause. “But I’m not lettin’ him hurt anybody else.”

Digging into the glove compartment, Dean pulled out as gun before he, Sam and Emma made their way into the house.

@~~>~~~

At the Miller’s kitchen, the scene Sam had seen was beginning to play out, Ms. Miller cutting vegetables as she spoke to Max.

“You know I never did anything,” Ms. Miller said.

“That’s right. You didn’t do anything,” Max cried out, the knife on the cutting board beginning to rattle. “You didn’t stop them, not once!”

Before the knife could move any further from the table, Sam, Dean and Emma burst through the door, the knife stilling as Max and Ms. Miller turned to them.

“Fathers? And….” Ms. Miller said, looking over at Emma.

“Oh, she works with the church,” Dean explained quickly.

“What are you doing here?” Max asked.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt,” Dean began.

“Max, could we, uh… could we talk to you outside for just one second?” Sam said.

“About what?” Max asked.

“It’s… it’s private,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t wanna bother your mother with it. We won’t be long at all, though. I promise.”

“Okay,” Max said with a glance back at his step-mom.

“Great,” Sam said, Max walking towards them. Dean made the move to open the front door, Max glancing over at the mirror by the door in time to see the gun sticking out of his jeans as his jacket shifted aside.

Suddenly, the door slammed shut in front of them, the shutters on the window sliding down.

“You’re not priests!” Max yelled. Acting Out of instinct, Dean pointed his gun at Max only to have telekinetically pulled out of his hands and drop to the floor where Max picked it up, pointing it at Sam, Dean and Emma.

“Max, what’s happening?!” Ms. Miller exclaimed.

“Shut up!” Max yelled at her.

“What are you doing?!” Ms. Miller continued to exclaim.

“I said shut up!” Max screamed again, jerking his head to look at his step-mom and sending her flying into the kitchen counter, knocking her head hard and falling to the floor.

“Max, calm down!” Sam said softly.

“Who are you?!” Max asked him.

“We just wanna talk to you,” Sam said.

“Yeah, right, that’s why you brought this!” Max said, motioning to the gun in his hands.

“That was a mistake, alright? So was lying about who we were, but no more lying, Max, okay? Just, please, just hear me out.”

“About what?”

“I saw you do it. I saw you kill your dad and your uncle before it happened.”

“What?”

“I’m having visions, Max. About you.”

“You’re crazy.”

“So, you weren’t gonna launch a knife at your step mom?” Sam said, pointing to his own eye. “Right here? Is it that hard to believe, Max? Look what you can do. Max, I was drawn here, alright? I think I’m here to help you.”

“No one can help me!”

“Let me try. We’ll just talk. Me and you. We’ll get Dean, Emma and Alice out of here.”

“Nuh-uh. No way,” Emma interrupted, Sam holding up a hand to quiet her.

“Nobody leaves this house!” Max screamed, his outburst of emotions masking the light fixture above them shake precariously.

“And nobody has to, alright?” Sam said. “They’ll just… they’ll just go upstairs.”

“Sam, we’re not leavin’ you alone with him,” Dean said.

“Yes, you are,” Sam told him before turning calmly to Max. “Look, Max, you’re in charge here, alright? We all know that. No one's gonna do anything that you don’t want to, but I’m talkin’ five minutes here, man.”

“Sam,” Dean tried again, only to have Sam hold up his hand again to stop him.

“Five minutes,” Max said, his emotions calming and the light fixture above them stopping shaking. “Go.”

Much against their wishes, Dean and Emma moved to the kitchen, gently shaking Ms. Miller to wake her and carrying her out of the room. While Dean and Emma made their way upstairs with Ms. Miller, Sam and Max sat on opposite couches, Max telekinetically moving a letter opener so it was stood up.

“Look, I can’t begin to understand what you went through,” Sam said.

“That’s right, you can’t,” Max said, his eyes transfixed on the letter opener.

“Max, this has to stop,” Sam said.

“It will,” Max told him. “After my stepmother.”

“No. You need to let her go,” Sam said.

“Why?” Max asked, the letter opener on the side beginning to spin on it’s tip.

“Did she beat you?”

“No. But she never tried to save me, she’s a part of it, too.”

“Look, what they did to you, what they all did to you, growing up, they deserve to be punished.”

“Growing up? Try last week.”

Standing up, Max pulled up his shirt to reveal on large bruise across his stomach as well as multiple cuts. Sam was stunned.

“My dad still hit me, just in places people wouldn’t see it. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, the letter opener spinning faster as Max’s emotions hit higher.

“When I first found out I could move things, it was a gift. My whole life I was helpless. But now I had this. So, last week, Dad gets drunk, first time in a long time. And he beats me to hell, first time in a long time. And then I knew what I had to do.”

“Why didn’t you just leave?”

“It wasn’t about getting away,” Max said, the letter opener dropping and making Sam jump. “Just knowing that they’d still be out there. It was about not being afraid. When my dad used to look at me, there was hate in his eyes. Do you know what that feels like?”

“No.”

“He blamed me for everything. For his job, for his life, for my mom’s death.”

“Why would he blame you for your mom’s death?”

“Because she died in my nursery. While I was asleep in my crib. As if that makes it my fault.”

“She died in your nursery?” Sam said, his eyes going wide.

“Yeah. There was a fire. And he’d get drunk and babble on like she died in some insane way. He said that she burned up. Pinned to the ceiling.”

For a moment, Sam was too shocked to say anything. He just stared at Max, unsure what to say or think about what he had just learnt.

“Listen to me, Max,” Sam said after a moments pause. “What your dad said about what happened to your mom, it’s real.”

“What?”

“It happened to my mom, too. Exactly the same. My nursery, my crib. My dad saw her on the ceiling.”

“Then your dad must have been as drunk as mine.”

“No. No, it’s the same thing, Max. The same thing killed our mothers.”

“That’s not possible.”

“This must be why I’ve been having visions during the day. Why they’re getting more intense. ‘Cause you and I must be connected in some way. Your abilities, they started six, seven months ago, right? Out of the blue?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Because that’s when my abilities started, Max. I mean, yours seem to be much further along, but still, this… this means something, right? I mean, for some reason, you and I… you and I were chosen.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. But Dean and I, my brother and I, we’re hunting for your mom's killer. And we can find answers. Answers that can help us both. But you gotta let us go. You gotta let your stepmother go.”

Max remained thoughtful for a moment, and Sam seriously thought he had got through to him. That was until his expression turned cold again and he shook his head.

“No,” Max said. “What they did to me…. I still have nightmares! I’m still scared all the time, like I’m just waiting for their next beating! I’m just tired of being scared. If I do this, it’ll be over!”

Max stood up, heading to the stairs and to finish his work, only to have Sam stand in his way.

“No,” Sam said. “Don’t you get it? It won’t. The nightmares won’t end, Max, not like this. It’s just more pain. And it makes you as bad as them. Max, you don’t have to go through all this by yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” Max simply said, using his telekinesis to send Sam flying backwards into a closet, slamming the door behind him.

“No!” Sam screamed as a large cupboard was slammed against the door, keeping him pinned inside.

“No, Max!” Sam screamed, pounding against the door. “No! Max!”

But Max just droned him out, walking up the stairs to finish what he had started.

@~~>~~~

Upstairs in the bedroom, Dean and Emma were tending to Ms. Miller. With a damp washcloth in her hand, Emma was gently dabbing at the cut on Ms. Miller’s forehead while Dean stood over, smiling as he watched her, the care and tenderness he had missed that was unmistakably Emma.

Dean, Emma and Ms. Miller’s attention were drawn up as the bedroom door slowly swung open on it’s own will and Max stepped in. taking charge, Dean took a step towards Max only to be thrown heavily against the far wall, the force of the impact denting the wall as he slid to the floor. Emma moved to his side, helping him to his feet as Max pulled the gun out.

“Max!” Ms. Miller said in shock as Max let go of the gun, making it hover in the air in front of him. “No. Max.”

Taking charge herself this time, Emma took a step towards Max, but instead of being thrown away, the floating gun was pointed at her.

“Stay back,” Max told her. “It’s not about you.”

“If you wanna kill her, you gotta go through us first,” Emma told him.

“Okay,” Max said.

What happened next occurred in a matter of seconds, even if it felt like hours to Dean and Emma.

Seeing what was going to happen next, Dean swiftly pushed Emma aside as the trigger on the gun was pulled, the bullet whizzing past Emma and instead hitting Dean. The shot hit him directly in the forehead, the wall behind him splattered with his blood as he collapsed to the floor.

“Dean!!” Emma shrieked against her own will, rushing to his side and, again against her will, feeling tears rise to the surface as she cried over the dead body of the man she would, despite herself, always love.

With a blinding white flash, Sam was brought back to the present, still locked in his closet and panic evident on his features.

“No!” he screamed. “No!”

Suddenly, as his scream echoed round that tiny room he was encased in, the cupboard that was pinning him inside quickly slid away. With a confused look, Sam cautiously pushed the closet door open.

@~~>~~~

In one of the bedrooms upstairs, Dean and Emma were stood in the joining bathroom, Emma running a cloth under the water while Dean stood beside her. They had gently sat the still shell-shocked Ms. Miller on the edge of the bed, and she was now staring blankly at her feet.

In the bathroom, Emma could sense Dean’s eyes on her the whole time she was stood at the sink. And frankly, the weight of his glare was beginning to get to her.

“What?” Emma said eventually, not looking up at him.

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Dean asked in confusion.

“You’re staring at me,” Emma stated. “Why?”

“No reason. I just forgot,” Dean said.

“Forgot what?” Emma asked.

“How beautiful you are,” Dean answered. With a deep sigh, Emma dropped the wash cloth into the sink, leaning forward against it and closing her eyes.

“Dean, don’t do this,” she told him softly.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Dean said. “But I’ve missed you.”

“Well get used to missing me some more, because I’m finished after this,” Emma said, not about to admit just how much she had really missed him too.

“Are you trying to tell me you haven’t missed me?” Dean said as if reading her mind. “Not even a little bit. Come on, tell me you didn’t miss this. Miss me.”

Again, Emma wasn’t about to admit it.

“You can’t, can you,” Dean said.

“It doesn’t matter, Dean,” Emma finally said. “Like I said, I’m done after this.”

“But why? Look at you. Deep down, you know you love helping people,” Dean said, making Emma smile slightly at the thought even if she tried to hide it. Dean, however, did see, and laughed lightly. “See, I saw that smile.”

“Yeah, I love helping people,” Emma told him. “But there are other ways that don’t involve being with you.”

“Emma, please, I….” Dean began.

“Dean. Not now, not ever. Ok?” Emma interrupted, taking the cloth and going into the main room, Dean following her. Emma knelt in front of the almost comatosed Ms. Miller, gently dabbing at the wound on her forehead while Dean watched her with a smile.

Dean, Emma and Ms. Miller’s attention were drawn up as the bedroom door slowly swung open on it’s own will and Max stepped in. taking charge, Dean took a step towards Max only to be thrown heavily against the far wall, the force of the impact denting the wall as he slid to the floor. Emma moved to his side, helping him to his feet as Max pulled the gun out.

“Max!” Ms. Miller said in shock as Max let go of the gun, making it hover in the air in front of him. “No. Max.”

Taking charge herself this time, Emma took a step towards Max, but instead of being thrown away, the floating gun was pointed at her.

“Stay back,” Max told her. “It’s not about you.”

“If you wanna kill her, you gotta go through us first,” Emma told him.

“Okay,” Max said.

Seeing the trigger on the gun begin to squeeze closed, Dean grabbed Emma and tried to push her aside, but she in turn gripped to his jacket, keeping herself close to him.

Just as the gun was about to fire, the bang that came was from the door bursting open, Sam on the other side.

“No, don’t!” Sam said to Max. “Don’t! Please. Please, Max. Max, we can help you, alright? But this, what you’re doing, it’s not the solution. It’s not gonna fix anything.”

Again, Max paused as if thinking over Sam’s words.

“You’re right,” Max said and Sam smiled, thinking he had gotten through to him.

With a sudden quickness, the gun floating in the air turned on Max and the trigger squeeze, Max falling to the ground as he shot himself.

There was a universal gasp and cry round the room. Emma, who still had a tight grip on Dean’s jacket, turned away from the scene, her head burying against Dean’s shoulder. As an automatic instinct, Dean wrapped his arm round her, holding her into his side.

Sam just continued to look down at Max’s body, stunned beyond belief.

@~~>~~~

Ms. Miller having momentarily pulled herself out of her shock, she had called the police once Max had shot herself and they were now talking with her, Sam, Dean and Emma downstairs.

“Max attacked me,” Ms. Miller was telling the officer. “He threatened me with a gun.”

“And these three?” the officer said, motioning to Sam, Dean and Emma.

“They’re… family friends. I called them as soon as Max arrived, I was scared,” Ms. Miller answered, her voice beginning to break. “They tried to stop him. They fought for the gun.”

“Where did Max get the gun?” the officer asked.

“I don’t know! He showed up with it, and….” Ms. Miller said, unable to go on as her voice broke out.

“It’s alright, Mrs. Miller,” the officer said soothingly.

“I’ve lost everyone!” Ms. Miller sobbed.

“Okay,” the officer said to Sam, Dean and Emma. “We’ll give you a call if we have any further questions.”

“Thanks, officer,” Dean said, the only one of the group still able to speak before turning to Sam and Emma. “Come on.”

Dean walked out first, followed by a still shell-shocked Sam and Emma.

“If I just said somethin’ else,” Sam said as they were walking back to the car. “Gotten through to him somehow.”

“Don’t do that,” Emma said.

“Do what?” Sam asked.

“Torture yourself,” Emma told him. “It wouldn’t have mattered what you said, Max was too far gone.”

“When I think about how he looked at me, man, right before….” Sam said. “Should’ve done something.”

“Come on, man, you risked your life,” Dean said. “I mean, yeah, maybe if we had gotten there twenty years earlier.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” Sam said as they stopped by the car. “We’re lucky we had Dad.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” Dean said, surprised.

“Well, he could’ve gone a whole ‘nother way after Mom,” Sam said. “A little more tequila, a little less demon-hunting, and we would’ve had Max’s childhood. All things considered, we turned out okay, thanks to him.”

“All things considered,” Dean said after a slight pause, leaving them in another silence.

“So, is someone gonna take me home?” Emma asked, knowing all well she was ruining the sentimental brother moment.

“In a minute,” Dean answered. “I need to talk to you.” Before Emma could protest, Dean grabbed her arm and walked her away, moving her into a sitting position on a nearby garden wall.

“Emma, why did you come back?” Dean asked as he sat beside her.

“Sam asked for my help. I couldn’t leave him high and dry,” Emma said, not knowing herself if that was true or not.

“Like you did with me,” Dean said, a little colder then he meant for it to come out.

“Dean, I don’t wanna get into this again.”

“Me either,” Dean said, his voice soft this time. “I don’t wanna argue with you. I just have one thing I wanna say.”

“No,” Emma said before he could say anything.

“No what? You don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”

“Yeah I do,” Emma answered. “And I’m not coming back. There’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind.”

“Nothing?” Dean asked innocently.

“No,” Emma replied.

“Not even if I tell you I love you.”

“No, not even….” Emma began, then she realised what he had said. She turned to him, a little shocked. “What!?”

“I said… I love you,” Dean repeated. For a minute, Emma stared at him, still in shock. Suddenly she stood up, backing away from him.

“This is just a way to make me stay,” Emma said quietly, not sure which one she wanted to believe. Her head or her heart.

“It’s not. I mean it. I love you.” For a minute, the two were silent as Emma looked up, staring directly into Dean’s eyes.

“Dean, the thing is, I know you always have,” she said eventually, her voice barely audible. Dean just stared back at her, totally confused. If that was the case, why were they at this point right now?

“They why….”

“There are different kinds of love Dean,” Emma interrupted him. “Like what you feel for your brother, your dad. Your mom. But when it comes to me….” Emma paused, breathing deeply and looking away from Dean. When she looked back up, Dean could see all the emotion behind her sparkling eyes

“I’ve been best friends with you my entire life,” Emma continued. “Us dating, I always guessed that would eventually happen. We were too close. But every time I told you I loved you, I knew deep down I’d never hear it from you. You never even show Sammy how much you care, and he’s your brother. But I do know you’ve always cared about me. The amount of times you’ve saved my life, even you can’t deny that. But when you say you love me, I really doubt it goes any deeper then caring when it comes to you.”

“You have no idea how wrong you are,” Dean said with a small smile. “I may not show it, but I understand the difference between love and friendship.”

“But Dean….” Dean stood up beside her, stopping her from going into another speech.

“You know me, Emma. I’m not meant to fall in love. Being in love, it always turns out bad for our family.”

“Dean, what do you…?”

“My dad loved my mum,” Dean said, cutting her off again. “And Sam loved Jess. Look what happened to them. I was on the outside, and I saw. I saw what it did to Sam and my dad. I couldn’t go through that. I couldn’t live my life knowing that I was the reason you weren’t around anymore.”

“So that’s it?” Emma said as she finally got a sentence out, her voice choked up but still a slight tinge of anger behind it. “That’s the reason why you cut yourself off. Why you never told me you loved me.” Not wanting to tell her she was right, Dean turned his gaze down.

“Dean, you’re an idiot,” he heard Emma say after a minute, and looked up again. “Just think about who you’re talking to Dean. I’m not the kind of girl who’s gonna go without a fight and you know it.”

“You don’t get it Emma,” Dean said, needing more than anything for her to understand this. “This demon isn’t just another thing that goes bump in the night. And as tough as I know you are, I don’t think even you could survive this one.”

Like he used to do so many times when she was around, Dean looked deep into Emma’s eyes and saw everything he wanted. Saw everything about her he knew he loved, and one thing became so clear he knew he couldn’t ignore it. The last thing he wanted was to loose her. Not know, not ever.

“But I know I can’t survive without you,” he finished finally. “So I’m making you a promise that I’m never gonna let that thing touch you.”

“Do not make a promise like that Dean,” Emma said quietly but defiantly.

“If it means I get to keep you in my life just that little bit longer, I’ll do whatever it takes,” Dean told her truthfully, and all Emma could do was stare at him, truly amazed at just how honest and heartfelt his words were right now.

“I know I cut myself off,” he continued. “I always do. And I am so sorry for that. I regret it more than anything if it meant I lost you.”

“I know you do Dean. But what does it change?” Emma asked, not sure if she really wanted the answer.

“Look, Emma. Back in that room, when Max had the gun pointed at us, I was scared for the first time in my life. Not for me, for you. When I thought he was gonna shot you, I would have done anything to protect you.”

“You almost did,” Emma replied with a half smile.

“Yeah. Because it’s just not the same without you.”

“What isn’t?” Emma asked honestly.

“Everything,” Dean replied. “While you’ve been gone, I’ve noticed all those little things I’ve missed about you. I miss your stupid jokes. I miss waking up next to you every morning.”

“You mentioned all this last time we spoke,” Emma said, not needing to hear it all again.

“Emma, I missed everything. I missed your smile, your laugh. Your kiss. The simply touch of your skin. The way your eyes light up when you’re helping people. The way you’ll always help people, no matter what. I missed you Emma. All the things I love about you and more. I love more than just the idea of you. I love you.”

Emma smiled at him, her eyes sparkling as they glistened slightly. She believed him. Every word he said, she believed. Because she wanted to, yes. But also because she knew it was true. She watched him, the way he spoke, and there was no way he was lying about this.

“I don’t fall in love. And I don’t do emotion well. But I can’t help the way I fell about you. And I really don’t wanna be away from you again. Please say you’ll come back,” Dean asked finally.

Smiling wider than she had in days, Emma jumped into Dean’s arms, kissing him passionately. Dean held tight to her, kissing her back and lifting her off her feet. She was back. They were back. And he wasn’t gonna mess this up this time.

@~~>~~~

More then ready to put this town in their rear-view mirror, the group, all three of them, were getting ready to leave. Emma, who had made the boys drop her off at her friend’s house to pick up her stuff, was packed and simply sat watching Dean as he walked round the room, grabbing his stuff.

When she had first left Dean behind, Emma had thought of every possible way to hurt him, get back at him. Like any betrayed woman, she had wanted her revenge. But the truth was, that had lasted a week at most. Yes, Dean hadn’t exactly been honest with her. Hardly ever was if she was honest. But what really pushed those thoughts away, kept her from lashing out at Dean the minute she had saw him again, was the fact that in that one moment, he had been truthful to her. That night with Cassie, Dean had had the chance and the perfect opportunity to sleep with his ex. But he hadn’t. The man may have been a pathological flirt but when it really mattered, he could and would be faithful to her, she knew that.

Looking round the motel room that would now be her life, Emma actually smiled. Most girls would hate this. A life full of cheap motel rooms in different towns with greasy take out food and two boys who thought the floor was the best place for their clothes. Most girls would want the opposite. A married life with kids and a white picket fence in a house right out of ‘Better Homes And Gardens’. But, as it had been made apparent enough times, Emma wasn’t like most girls.

Without a doubt, she could easily look past all the boys annoyingly little habits and the fact she was probably gonna spend most of her life in motel rooms like this. She had a few bad habits of their own, and the motel rooms weren’t really that bad. All that stuff didn’t matter one bit to Emma. Not if she was back with the Winchester boys. Not if she was back in Dean’s arms again.

Turning round, Dean looked up to see Emma watching him and smiled himself, dropping what he was doing and walking over to her. Things were perfect again now. Looking around and seeing Emma sat in the motel room again actually smiling at him was how it should be. And all it had taken was finally being honest with both him and her and telling her that he loved her. Because he knew now, like he should have known the night she had left, that he loved Emma like he had never loved any other girl in his life. All the others were just that, just girls. Emma was something a whole lot different, and most definitely a whole lot better.

Leaning down to her level, Dean captured Emma’s lips in a passionate kiss, truly ecstatic that he was able to do this again. And what made it all the better was Emma kissing him back with just as much passion.

Pulling back to see a smiling Emma, Dean knelt in front of her, a smile across his own lips. Seeing the all too familiar glint in the back of Dean’s eyes, Emma knew exactly what he was thinking when he opened his mouth. Whatever it was though didn’t have a chance to come out.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sam suddenly said, his back to Dean and Emma and clearly not seeing the moment between them.

“Well, that’s never a good thing,” Dean said sarcastically, getting to his feet with a deep sigh.

“I’m serious. I’ve been thinking,” Sam repeated. “Why would this demon, or whatever it is, why would it kill Mom and Jessica and Max’s mother, you know, what does it want?”

“No idea,” Dean said truthfully.

“Well, you think maybe it was after us?” Sam suggested. “After Max and me?”

“Why would you think that?” Dean asked.

“I mean, either telekinesis or premonitions, we both had abilities, you know?” Sam said. “Maybe it was after us for some reason.”

“Sam, if it wanted you, it would’ve just taken you, okay?” Dean told his brother. “This is not your fault. It’s not about you.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about that damn thing that did this to our family. The thing that we’re gonna find, the thing that we’re gonna kill. And that’s all.”

“Actually, there’s, uh, somethin’ else, too.”

“Oh, jeez, what?”

“When Max locked me in that closet, that big cabinet against the door… I moved it.”

“You’ve got a little bit more upper body strength than I give you credit for.”

“No, man, I moved it… like Max.”

“Oh. Right,” Emma said softly, still sat on the bed, while Dean picked up a spoon from the cabinet.

“Bend this,” Dean told his brother.

“I can’t turn it on and off, Dean,” Sam groaned.

“Well, how’d you do it?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know, I can’t control it,” Sam answered truthfully. “I saw you die, and it just came out of me, like a punch. You know, like a freak adrenaline thing.”

“Well, I’m sure it won’t happen again,” Dean said, although his voice didn’t sound too convincing.

“Yeah, maybe,” Sam said, sounding a little defeated himself. “Aren’t you guys worried? Aren’t you worried that I could turn into Max or something?”

“Nope. No way,” Emma said, her voice full of confidence. “You know why?”

“No. Why?” Sam asked.

“ ‘Cause you’ve got one advantage that Max didn’t have,” Emma told him.

“Dad?” Sam questioned. “Because Dad’s not here, Emma.”

“No. Us,” Emma said, standing beside Dean and leaning against his shoulder, smiling up at him as he smiled down at her.

“As long as we’re around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you,” Dean continued for her. “Now then, I know what we need to do about your premonitions. I know where we have to go.”

“Where?” Sam asked, hearing the serious tone in his brother’s voice.

“Vegas,” Dean said, his serious tone falling as he smiled cheekily, making Emma laugh. Sam just scoffed turning away and heading out to the car. “What? Come on, man. Craps table. We’d clean up.”

Sam just ignored him, continuing to walk to the car. Dean smiled after him, walking out of the motel with Emma, switching off the lights and closing the door behind them. As he looked back over at Sam getting in the car, his smile fell, his false demeanor dropping as everything that had happened on this hunt mulled around in his mind. And the implications they just might bring.

Looking up at him, Emma saw the look in his eyes. One this time that she hadn’t seen often. And one that was behind her eyes as well.

“Yeah, me too,” Emma said softly, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it gently as she knew what was running through his mind. “But we’ll worry about it another time.”

The smile back on her lips and her hand still tight in his, Emma backed up, pulling him towards the car. Actually smiling himself now, Dean picked up his pace so he was walking beside Emma, his hand still in hers, and did as she suggested for once.

There was still time to worry about all of the little things later.


	15. The Benders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> After hearing in 'smallville' Hibbing, while masquerading as Minnesota state police, a boy's story about a monster probably was inspired by a Godzilla movie, Sam points out the county was marked by dad as suspicious and has the state's highest ratio of disappearances, but Dean and Emma just want to relax, at least till the morning, until Sam disappears on the parking lot. Dean and Emma team up with local police woman Kathleen, who even after finding out they impersonated cops decides not to arrest them before Sam is found, because her own brother also disappeared years earlier. Their search reaches the large, lonely house where a sinister human family keeps Sam and others in cages, and their intentions at least are monstrous.

Hibbing, Minnesota, late at night. Well past a young boys bedtime. But still, he’s sat there in his bed, lights out and a monster flick playing on the TV. However, it’s not the noise on the TV screen that grabs his attention, but thumps from outside.

Getting up to look out of the window, he sees a man walking across the car park, two garbage bags in his hand and heading to the dumpsters, dropping them in. a typical nightly ritual for this man no doubt. But on the way back, it is a second noise that grabs both the boy’s and the man’s attention. A screeching noise coming from beneath one of the cars in the lot. Getting to his knees, the man looks for the source of the sound, clearly horrified by what caught his eyes as he scrambled to his feet. But before he can get too far away, the horrifying scene from below the car pulled him, dragging him on his stomach, screaming, until he vanished beneath the car.

And all the while, the boy watched, only now closing the curtains with a terrified look on his face.

@~~>~~~

Next morning and the boy is having to relive the event again, telling them to a trio of state police, his mother present. Only these are three very unique officers who go by the names of Sam, Dean and Emma.

“I know you’re just doing your job,” his mother, Mrs McKay told the officers. “But the police have been here all week already. I don’t see why we have to go through this again. The more he tells the story, the more he believes it’s true.”

“Mrs. McKay, we know you spoke with the local authorities,” Sam began.

“But, uh, this seems like a matter for the state police, so….” Dean continued, trailing off.

“Don’t worry about how crazy it sounds, Evan,” Emma concluded for the two boys. “You just tell us what you saw. 

“I was up late,” Evan began to retell. “Watching TV, when I heard this weird noise.”

“What did it sound like?” Emma asked.

“It sounded like… a monster,” Evan told her, Sam, Dean and Emma exchanging a look at this.

“Tell the officers what you were watching on TV,” Mrs McKay told her son, showing how much she didn’t believe his story of event.

“Godzilla Vs. Mothra,” Evan shyly told the three, even if that did make Dean smile.

“That’s my favorite Godzilla movie,” Dean said, lowering himself to the level as a child as usual. “It’s so much better than the original, huh?”

“Totally,” Evan agreed with a wide smile.

“Yeah,” Dean said, nodding towards Sam. “He likes the remake.”

“Yuck!” Evan said, agreeing with Dean again. Sam glared at Dean, clearing his throat to get him to shut up.

“Evan, did you see what this thing was?” Sam asked, bringing the tone back to a professional level.

“No. But I saw it grab Mr. Jenkins,” Evan said. “It pulled him underneath the car.”

“Then what?” Sam asked.

“It took him away,” Evan told them. “I heard the monster leaving. It made this really scary sound.”

“What did it sound like, Evan?” Emma asked him.

“Like this… whining growl,” Evan answered, Sam, Dean and Emma again exchanging a look, considered the possibilities of just what this could be this time.

“Thanks for your time,” Emma finished with a smile, concluding their time at the McKay’s household.

@~~>~~~

Thinking over what they had been told today and things that they already knew from searching this case, Sam, Dean and Emma made their way to the nearest bar. Sam, the typical bookworm, was sat at the table with research in front of him. Emma was sat at the table as well, only she had a beer in front of her. Dean was stood near by, practising his aim with the dartboard.

“So, local police have now ruled out foul play,” Emma said, looking over Sam’s shoulder at the research. “Apparently, there are worse signs of a struggle.”

“Well, they could be right, it could just be a kidnapping,” Dean said. “Maybe this isn’t our kind of gig. 

“Yeah, maybe not. Except for this, Dad marked the area,” Sam said, gaining Dean’s full attention as he came over to the table to look in their father’s journal. “Possible hunting grounds of a phantom attacker.”

“Why would he even do that?” Dean questioned.

“Well, he found a lot of local folklore about a dark figure that comes out at night,” Sam summarised. “Grabs people, then vanishes. He found this too. This county has more missing persons per capita than anywhere else in the state.”

“That is weird,” Dean said.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“Don’t phantom attackers usually snatch people from their beds?” Emma said, punching small holes in that theory. “Jenkins was taken from a parking lot.”

“Well, there are all kinds,” Sam said, attempting to sew those holes back up. “You know, Springhill Jacks, phantom gassers. They take people anywhere, anytime. Look, I don’t know if this is our kind of gig either.”

“Yeah, you’re right, we should ask around more tomorrow,” Dean said.

“Right,” Sam said, reaching for his wallet. “I saw a motel about five miles back.”

“Whoa, whoa, easy,” Dean said. “Let’s have another round.”

“We should get an early start,” Sam told him.

“Yeah, you really know how to have fun, don’t you, Grandma?” Dean said, Sam’s only reply a small smile. “Alright, I’ll meet you outside, I gotta take a leak.”

Dean grabbed his coat, heading to the bathroom, while Sam gathered up all his research. He turned to Emma, his eyes asking if she was coming with him or not.

“Don’t look at me,” Emma said, picking up her beer bottle. “I wanna finish my drink.”

Sam laughed slightly as she took a swig, clearly determined on staying until that bottle was drained. Giving her that and knowing she would come out with Dean, although no knowing just how long that would be with those two, Sam left the bar.

Outside, Sam made his way over to the car, more prepared to wait for those two in the warmth rather than in the cold night air. But he was only within a couple of feet of inches of the car when he heard a noise that got his attention.

Placing the journal with the extra research onto the hood of the car, Sam took a flashlight from his coat pocket, using it to look around. Bending beneath the car to get a full view, Sam was knocked back from it as something flew at him, hissing. Frantically reaching for his flashlight, Sam turned it on his assailant to find….

A cat.

Shaking his head with a sigh, Sam set himself straight, hopping all this up to his overactive imagination and leaning against Dean’s car to wait for him and Emma.  
What he wasn’t aware of was whatever was still under that car, watching him.

@~~>~~~

Not too long later, Dean and Emma left the bar, waiting to meet Sam outside. Only he wasn’t there. The journal and research was on the hood, but no Sam, not even inside the car.

Dean and Emma searched around, looking by the other cars, back in the bar, even in the bushes nearby. And with each minute they didn’t find him, they were becoming more and more frantic.

The first people to come in contact with the frantic Dean and Emma was a biker and his girlfriend from within the bar, clearly drunk. But Dean was in front of them in a flash.

“Hey, you guys been outside, around here in the last hour or so?” Dean asked them. All he got was a shake of the head as they walked away.

“Sam!” Dean called out, frantically looking round.

“Sammy!” Emma called out, just as frantic. Looking round, Emma’s eyes fell on the surveillance camera on the road, elbowing Dean to get his attention, surely that have to have caught something.

“Sam!” Dean and Emma called one last time, wandering onto the abandoned road.

@~~>~~~

Doing what any normal person would do, even if they weren’t that. Dean and Emma made their way to the police station the next morning to report Sam missing. Only unlike most people, Dean and Emma hadn’t gone in as themselves. That would have got them immediately arrested, missing persons case or not. Instead, they had gone with their trusty fake ID’s.

“So,” Kathleen, the young deputy, said as she came back out to the two. “What can we do for you, Officer’s Washington and Warrington? 

“I’m working a missing persons,” Officer Washington, ie Dean, answered.

“I didn’t know the Jenkins case was being covered by the state police,” Kathleen said, spieling off the only ongoing missing persons case she knew of.

“Oh, no,” Dean said. “No, there’s someone else. Actually, it’s my cousin. We were havin’ a few last night at this bar down by the highway. And I haven’t seen him since.”

“Does your cousin have a drinking problem?” Kathleen asked, going with the obvious police questions.

“Sam? Two beers and he’s doin’ karaoke,” Officer Warrington, ie Emma said, getting a small smile from Kathleen. “No, he wasn’t drunk. He was taken.”

Kathleen nodding, getting to business and sitting in front of her computer, Dean and Emma taking the seats in front of her.

“Alright. What’s his name?” Kathleen asked.

“Winchester. Sam Winchester,” Dean answered.

“Like the rifle?” Kathleen asked.

“Like the rifle,” Dean told her, having heard that asked enough times. Kathleen went to work, typing Sam’s name into the search engine and bringing up his rather extensive file and police record. She looked over the page, seeing a link at the bottom to one sibling, brother Dean Winchester. One click and she had his rather more extensive police file.

“Samuel Winchester,” Kathleen read off his full title. “So, you know that his brother, Dean Winchester, died in St. Louis. And, uh, was suspected of murder.”

“Yeah, Dean,” Emma said, her and the actual Dean beside her trying their best to act nonchalant. “Kind of the black sheep of the family. Handsome, though.”

“Uh-huh,” Kathleen said, face down and back to the computer. With her attention turned away, Emma turned to Dean with a soft smile, getting a smirk back in return. “Well, he’s not showing up in any current field reports.”

“Oh, I already have a lead,” Dean told her. “I saw a surveillance camera by the highway.”

“Uh-huh. The county traffic cam?” Kathleen said.

“Right,” Dean answered. “Yeah. I’m thinking the camera picked up whatever took him. Or, whoever.”

“Well, I have access to the traffic cam footage down at the county works department, but… well, anyhow, let’s do this the right way,” Kathleen said, taking a bunch of sheets of paperwork from the top drawer of a filing cabinet and handing them to Dean, along with a clipboard. “Why don’t you fill out a missing persons report and sit tight over here?”

“Officer,” Dean said, pushing the paperwork aside. “Look, uh, he’s family. I kind of… I kind of look out for the kid. You gotta let me go with you. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” Kathleen told them.

“Well, tell me something,” Emma asked her. “Your county has its fair share of missing persons. Any of ‘em come back?”

Kathleen’s silence and the melancholy look on her face was enough of an answer for the pair.

“Sam’s my responsibility,” Dean said into the silence. “And he’s comin’ back. I’m bringin’ him back.”

And Dean and Emma simply waiting as Kathleen stared them out. Waiting to see just what she would do.

@~~>~~~

Somewhere else, in an unknown location, Sam was in a lot worse situation than Dean and Emma.

Locked tight in a cage, Sam was asleep, or more like unconscious, lay on his back on a pile of hay and straw. But not for long as he jerked awake, his eyes, those of a hunter, immediately taking in his surroundings. He saw the bars surrounding him, holding him, the empty room that looked to be a barn….

And Jenkins, the guy he, Dean and Emma had come to rescue, trapped opposite him in a cage very similar to his own.

@~~>~~~

Sat outside the County Works Department, Dean and Emma were waiting for a Kathleen who had eventually made up their minds. She was helping them, though what the reason was they weren’t too sure right now. For now, they were just glad that she was helping. The quicker they got this sorted out, the quicker they would get Sam back.

“Greg, Sarah,” Dean and Emma heard Kathleen’s voice from behind them call out their faked names. Standing to great her, they saw that she was holding a number of printouts. “I think we’ve got something. These traffic cams take an image every three seconds, as part of the Amber Alert program. These images were all taken around the time that your cousin, Sam, disappeared.”

“This really isn’t what I’m looking for,” Dean said as he flicked through picture after picture of what looked like a typical highway.

“Just wait, wait, next one,” Kathleen told them. Dean turned the next page to see an image of a rusted up truck. “This one was taken right after Sam left the bar. Look at the back end of that thing. Now, look at the plates.”

Dean and Emma did just that, turning the page to see a close up of the truck’s license plate, and they did not match the truck at all.

“Oh, the plates look new,” Dean noticed. “It’s probably stolen.”

“So, whoever’s driving that rust bucket must be involved,” Kathleen deduced. Just then, a beat up van, quite similar but not quite to the pictures they had in front of him. The engine, backfiring and in desperate need of a tuning, whined loudly as it drove by.

“Hear that engine?” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Kathleen answered.

“Kind of a whining growl, isn’t it?” Emma said, thinking back to their conversation with young Evan.

“Sure,” Kathleen agreed. Dean and Emma watched the beat up van as it drove away, their eyes meeting once it was out of sight.

“I’ll be damned,” they both muttered below their breaths.

@~~>~~~

Back at his prison barn, within his prison cage, Sam was desperately trying to kick down the door trapping him. But at this rate, it seemed that he was more likely to break his foot before he broke down the door.

The banging and clanging reverberating round the empty room, the noise woke Jenkins, who sat with a groan. Hearing his trapped partner awake, Sam moved over to the bars on his side.

“You’re alive,” he said to him, merely getting another groan in response. “Hey, you okay?”

“Does it look like I’m doin’ okay?” Jenkins muttered sarcastically.

“Where are we?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. The country, I think. Smells like the country,” Jenkins responded. 

“You’re Alvin Jenkins, aren’t you?” Sam asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“I was lookin’ for ya,” Sam said with a sigh.

“Oh, yeah?” Jenkins questioned.

“Yeah,” Sam replied.

“Well, no offense, but this is a piss-poor rescue,” Jenkins told him. Sam couldn’t help but think about how he was trapped with someone a little too like his brother. All he needed now was a pretty girl to yell at the two of them and it would be like he wasn’t even lost.

“Well, my brother and friend are out there right now, too,” Sam said. “They’re lookin’ for us. So….”

“So, they’re not gonna find us. We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Jenkins said, nodding towards a door that lead out into another building. “Waiting for them to come back and do God-knows-what to us.”

“What are they?” Sam asked eagerly. “Have you seen them?”

“What are you talking about?” Jenkins said.

“Whatever’s got us, what’d they look like?” Sam repeated.

“See for yourself,” Jenkins said as the sound of the opening fdor echoed through the barn.

Two men wearing black coats that covered their heads walked in, one heading to Jenkins’ cage and kicking the bars, causing him to back up a bit. The second man moved over to a panel on the wall, inserting a key and turning it. This unlocked the door to Jenkin’s cage and the two men stepped just inside it.

“Leave me alone!” Jenkins yelled at the two. “Don’t you take me, leave me alone!”

But they didn’t want to take him. Instead, they simply placed a plate of food in front of him, leaving the cage and going over to the panel to lock it again. They left the barn without saying a word, Sam watching them while Jenkins greedily dug into his food.

“I’ll be damned,” Sam muttered softly to himself. “They’re just people.”

“Yeah. What’d you expect?” Jenkins said between mouthfuls.

“How often do they feed you?” Sam asked, getting back on topic.

“Once a day. And they use that thing over there to open the cage,” Jenkins said, pointing to the panel the men had used.

“And that’s the only time you see ‘em?” Sam asked.

“So far. But I’m waitin’,” Jenkins told him.

“Waitin’ for what?” Sam asked.

“Ned Beatty time, man,” Jenkins said simply.

“I think that’s the least of your worries right now,” Sam said.

“Oh, yeah?” Jenkins questioned.

“Yeah,” Sam repeated.

“What do you think they want, then?” Jenkins asked. For a moment, Sam didn’t answer. He was more interested in finding a way out, and right now he was working on a metal wire stretching over his cage, pulling at it and simply hoping for the best.

“Depends on who they are,” Sam finally answered.

“They’re a bunch of psycho hillbilly rednecks, if you ask me,” Jenkins said. “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.”

Sam said nothing to that. He just continued to pull at the wire, slowly starting to detach it from the pole it was attached to.

@~~>~~~

Making only a small amount of headway on their case to find Sam, Dean and Emma were now driving round in the squad car with Kathleen, using the traffic camera pictures to follow where their rusty old van had gone too.

“Okay, the next traffic cam is fifty miles from here,” Kathleen told them as they passed yet another camera. “And the pickup didn’t pass that one, so….”

“So, it must’ve pulled off somewhere,” Dean finished for her. “I didn’t see any other roads here.”

“Well, a lot of these backwoods properties have their own private roads,” Kathleen told them.

“Great,” Dean muttered, turning to stare at the passing scenery to hope to catch a glimpse of this little back road, even in the pitch dark. A beep from the computer told them it had new information, catching Kathleen’s attention but not Dean or Emma’s. She clicked the screen, bringing up a page with information that Kathleen had been expecting, but not really wanting.

“So, Gregory, Sarah,” Kathleen said to Dean and Emma, causing them to look over at her.

“Yeah?” Emma said.

“I ran your badge numbers,” Kathleen told them. “It’s routine when we’re working a case with state police. For accounting purposes and what have you.”

“Mm hmm,” Emma mumbled, dread starting to set in at just what she might have found.

“And, uh, they just got back to me,” Kathleen said, pulling the car to a stop on the side of the road. “It says here your badges were stolen. And there are picture’s of you two.”

Kathleen turned the computer screen for Dean and Emma to more easily see, showing them the pictures of themselves. Only these pictures looked nothing like the two people she was driving with.

Officer Gregory Washington was a heavy set African American man, while Officer Sarah Warrington was an overly skinny blonde who resembled Emma in now way.

“I lost some weight,” Dean tried to talk his way out. “And I got that Michael Jackson skin disease.”

“Me?” Emma said of her picture. “Nothing but a hair dye and… you know, surgery.”

“Okay, would you step out of the car, please?” Kathleen told the two, taking off her seatbelt and beginning to get out herself.

“Look, look, look,” Dean began, stopping her in her tracks. “If you wanna arrest me, that’s fine. I’ll cooperate, I swear. But, first, please… let me find Sam.”

“I don’t even know who you are,” Kathleen argued back. “Or if this Sam person is missing.”

“Look into my eyes and tell me if I’m lying about this,” Emma said sincerely.

“Identity theft?” Kathleen questioned of the two. “You’re impersonating an officer.”

“Look, here’s the thing,” Dean began. “When we were young, I pretty much pulled him from a fire. And ever since then, I’ve felt responsible for him. Like it’s my job to keep him safe. I’m just afraid if we don’t find him fast… please. He’s my family.”

“I’m sorry. You’ve given me no choice,” Kathleen told them in true police officer style. “I have to take you in.”

Kathleen looked up, glancing at her visor, and her eyes caught sight of the picture she always carried there. A picture of her an another young man, both smiling and happy. A picture of a man she had not seen in years, and probably never would again.

“After we find Sam Winchester,” Kathleen said, sitting back in her seat and fastening her seatbelt again. Dean and Emma looked at each other, then Kathleen, confused. Again, they weren’t too sure and why this woman was helping them, but again, it didn’t matter as long as it got them closer to Sam.

@~~>~~~

Where Sam actually was, he was still trying to free himself, still pulling at the metal wire fastened above his cage.

“What’s your name, again?” Jenkins asked as he watched him.

“It’s Sam,” Sam answered distractedly.

“Why don’t you give it up, Sammy,” he told him. “ There’s no way out.”

“Don’t… call me… Sammy!” Sam said between grunts, his work finally paying off as with one final tug the wire pulled lose, a small metal item falling between the bars and into the cage by Sam’s feet.

The door, however, did not open.

“What is it?” Jenkins asked, noticing Sam picking up and examining the piece of metal.

“It’s a bracket,” Sam answered.

“Well, thank God, a bracket. Now we’ve got ‘em, huh?” Jenkins joked. Just then, the door to Jenkins’ cage unlocked, eerily swinging open all by itself.

“Must’ve been short,” Jenkins said, climbing from his cage. “Maybe you knocked somethin’ loose.”

“I think you should get back in there, Jenkins,” Sam said, not liking this situation at all.

“What?” Jenkins asked, thinking the boy was nuts. There was no way he was climbing back in that cage now he was free.

“This isn’t right,” Sam told him.

“Don’t you wanna get out of here?” Jenkins asked.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “But that was too easy.”

“Look, I’m gonna get out of here, and I’m gonna send help, okay,” Jenkins told him. “Don’t worry.”

“No, I’m serious,” Sam continued to try. “Jenkins, this might be a trap.”

“Bye, Sammy,” Jenkins called back as he strode out of the barn. 

“Jenkins!” Sam called after him, but to no avail. Jenkins was inside a room very similar to the one he had just left, trying to find a way out.

Inside the room Sam was still trapped in, the door to Jenkins’ cage slammed shut with a resounding metal clunk.

@~~>~~~

Outside in the freedom of the night, Jenkins walked round the exterior of what seemed to be a rundown house, searching for an escape route. What that search did yield was a weapon, a knife just simply lay out on the ground.

“Thank you,” Jenkins spoke to the sky as he run off into the woods, never questioned just where that knife might have come from… or who put it there.

Wandering through the woods, his eyes only just becoming accustomed to the night sky his ears were more attuned, picking up on the sound of people approaching. Clutching to the knife, his only hope, Jenkins took off at a steady run through the trees. Before too long, the noise approaching revealed itself, a man in camouflage leaping from the bushes in front of him, knocking Jenkins to the ground. Using quick thinking, Jenkins stabbed the knife into the man’s legs, loosing his weapon but giving him chance to stumbling to his feet and run off into the woods, searching for a clearing. Finding the clearing, Jenkins found himself no more safer than before, he was still lost.

Making things all the more worse, the next thing Jenkins felt was a sharp pain in his leg before falling to the ground, the camouflaged man he had stabbed using the same knife to stab him in the leg, only he took the knife out. Jenkins turned onto his back, looking up at two camouflaged men now, both with their gun aimed at him. Before either could get a shot off, in the cover of darkness, Jenkins managed to scramble to his feet, the men’s manic laughter following him as he ran off back into the deep cover of the tree.

The blanket of darkness now being both a gift and a curse, Jenkins didn’t notice the trip wire until too late, until he had fallen over, landing flat on the ground. He turned on his back just in time to see the two men catch up to him, their knives glinting in the moonlight as they raised them high above their heads.

And back in the confines of his cage, Sam could only cringe as he heard Jenkins screams echo into the night.

@~~>~~~

Daylight hours, early morning, and Dean, Emma and Kathleen try to revive themselves for the day ahead with a fix of Starbucks caffine.

“Hey, Officer?” Emma questioned Kathleen. “Look, I don’t mean to press our luck.”

“Your luck is so pressed,” Kathleen interrupted.

“Right,” Emma mumbled. “I was wondering… why are you helping us out, anyway? Why don’t you just lock us up?”

“My brother, Riley, disappeared three years ago,” Kathleen told them solemnly. “A lot like Sam. We searched for him, but… nothing. I know what it’s like to feel responsible for someone, and for them…. Come on. Let’s keep at it.”

And Kathleen left it at that, expecting no more questions, only getting in the car and wanting the pair to follow him.

At least they now knew why Kathleen had always been so willing to help them.

@~~>~~~

Dean, Emma and Kathleen had been driving down that fifty miles stretched of road between traffic cameras for ages, and had yet to see anywhere where Sam may be hidden.

That was until the something that caught Dean’s eyes.

“Wait, wait, wait, pull over here. Pull over,” Dean told Kathleen and she did, the three getting out of the car and looking at the stretch of forest Dean had stopped them by. The stretched with a hidden turn-off. “It’s the first turn-off I’ve seen so far.”

“You stay here, I’ll check it out,” Kathleen told the pair.

“No way,” Emma said, beating Dean to the punch.

“Hey,” Kathleen continued. “You’re a civilian. And a felon, I think. I’m not taking you with me.”

“You’re not goin’ without us,” Emma told her.

“Alright,” Kathleen said with a sigh. “You promise you won’t get involved? You’ll let me handle it?”

“Yeah, promise,” Dean told her, not holding eyes contact.

“Shake on it,” Kathleen said, holding out her hand with Dean took. Moving quicker than either Dean or Emma had anticipated, Kathleen clasped an open handcuff around Dean’s wrist, taking hold of Emma before she could move and snapping the other side round her wrist, cuffing them together.

“Oh, come on,” Dean and Emma groaned as Kathleen moved the pair by the cuffs, keeping hold of them for a second as she linked the cuffs between the handle of the car, once again moving quickly and having the cuff on Emma’s wrist open and closed, trapping them to the car, before either she or Dean knew what was going on.

“This is ridiculous,” Dean called out to Kathleen as she walked away from them. “Kathleen, I really think you’re gonna need my help. 

“I’ll manage. Thank you,” Kathleen said, clicking the lock button as she walked off down the trial.

“I gotta start carrying paper clips,” Dean said once they were alone.

“Definitely,” Emma agreed.

@~~>~~~

Follow the trail until the end, Kathleen passed an old barn as she came to an even older house, making her way to the front porch and up the steps.

“Hello? Anybody home?” Kathleen called towards the empty house, knocking on the door. The door opened and a young girl, hair uncleaned and uncombed and dire on her face, stood in front of Kathleen.

“Hi. Who are you?” Kathleen asked as the girl moved closer, examining Kathleen’s badge.

“Who are you?” the young girl repeated the question.

“I’m, uh, I’m Kathleen. I’m a deputy,” Kathleen told her. “What’s your name?”

“Missy,” the girl answered.

“Missy,” Kathleen repeated. “That’s a pretty name. Missy, is your mom home?”

“She’s dead,” Missy said bluntly.

“I’m sorry. What about your dad?” Kathleen asked, Missy just shaking her head in answer. “No? Can I come in for a minute?” Again, Kathleen only got a shake of the young girls head as an answer, backing up slightly towards the door.

“I just want you to look at a picture,” Kathleen said to her, showing her a picture of Sam that Dean and Emma had given her. “Have you seen that guy? Look at that picture.” Missy looked at the picture before looking up, her eyes locking on something behind Kathleen as a wicked smile flew across her lips.

“What?” Kathleen asked.

“That’s gonna hurt,” Missy said mysteriously. Turning to see what the girl was seeing, Kathleen only had time to see a glimpse of the unwashed man standing in front of her before all she saw was black. After the shovel hit her in the face of course.

“Missy, sweetheart, go tell your brothers I wanna see ‘em,” Missy’s father, Pa, told her.

“Yes, Daddy,” Missy said, wandering off with the picture of Sam still in her hands.

@~~>~~~

Back at the car, Dean and Emma were still trying to free themselves from their shackles on the car, pulling at the handcuffs and looking for anything they could use to pick the lock. And that was when Dean’s eyes fell on the car antenna, which was closer to Emma.

“Babe?” Dean said to her in a sing-song type voice.

“Yes?” Emma repeated in the same sing-song voice, knowing that meant Dean wanted something from her.

“You’re closer, see if you can reach the antenna,” Dean said. Emma turned, also seeing then antenna, and reached for it, but it was still slightly out of her reach.

Just then, the screech of pickup tyres travelled through the trees and met Dean and Emma’s ears.

“Oh, son of a bitch,” Dean muttered as Emma stretched further for the antenna. “You wanna hurry it up.”

“You think I’m not trying,” Emma said as she heard the pickup truck stop, followed by the click of a gate and footsteps heading their way. One finally stretched and Emma wrapped her fingers round the antenna, now hurrying in unscrewing it from the car.

The antenna falling loose of it holdings, the metal rod slipped to the ground where Dean picked it up, getting to work on the handcuffs that were securing him and his girlfriend to the car, working quick as the two brothers, Jared and Lee, finally reached the clearing where the car was parked.

“Well, I’ve never seen him so angry before,” Lee said as they headed to the car, speaking about their father.

“I’ve never been followed by the police before,” Jared added, following Lee who had the keys in his hand.

Walking round the side of the car, the two brothers found nothing, Dean and Emma long gone as they slid inside the vehicle.

@~~>~~~

Inside the barn, the cage that had once been occupied by Jenkins was now Kathleen’s home, coming out of unconsciousness with a groan, massaging her sore head.

“You alright?” Kathleen heard a male voice answer, looking up at the occupant of the cage opposite her.

“Are you Sam Winchester?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

“Your, uh, your cousin’s are looking for you,” Kathleen told him.

“Thank God,” Sam said, clinging to his new ray of hope. “Where are they?”

“I, uh… I cuffed them to my car,” Kathleen admitted, Sam sighing.

The creak of the door opening captured Sam and Kathleen’s attention, watching as two sets of jean clad legs headed towards their cage. It wasn’t until they were stood practically in front of the two cages when Sam and Kathleen could see Dean and Emma’s faces.

“Sam?” Emma said as the pair saw him, kneeling in front of the cage as Sam smiled. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Sam answered.

“Damn, it’s good to see you,” Emma said with her own smile.

“How did you get out of the cuffs?” Kathleen asked the pair, knocking their attention to her.

“Oh, I know a trick or two,” Dean said, getting a confused look from Kathleen.

“Alright,” Dean said, moving to take a closer look at the locks holding Sam in. “Oh, these locks look like they’re gonna be a bitch.”

“Well, there’s some kind of automatic control right there,” Sam said, pointing to the control panel on the wall he had already seen them using.

“Have you seen ‘em?” Dean asked his brother.

“Yeah,” Sam answered. “Dude, they’re just people.”

“And they jumped you? Must be gettin’ a little rusty there, kiddo,” Dean joked as he and Emma examined the control panel and buttons.

“What do they want?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “They let Jenkins go, but that was some sort of trap. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Well, that’s the point,” Emma told him. “You know, with our usual playmates, there’s rules, there’s patterns. But with people, they’re just crazy.”

“See anything else out there?” Sam asked.

“Uh, he has about a dozen junked cars hidden out back,” Dean said. “Plates from all over, so I’m thinkin’ when they take someone, they take their car, too.”

“Did you see a black Mustang out there?” Kathleen suddenly jumped into the conversation. “About ten years old?”

“Yeah, actually, I did,” Dean said, Kathleen’s expression turning sombre again.

“Your brother’s?” Emma asked, and Kathleen nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Let’s get you guys out of here, then we’ll take care of those bastards,” Dean said, getting back to point. “This thing takes a key. Key?”

“I don’t know,” Sam told them.

“Alright, I better go find it,” Dean said, him and Emma turning to leave.

“Hey,” Sam said, pulling Dean and Emma’s attention long enough for them to turn to him. “Be careful.”

“Yeah,” Emma said as she and Dean left the barn.

@~~>~~~

Inside the house and searching for the keys, Dean and Emma found themselves in a dark basement like room, their flashlights the only light ahead of them. Shelves towered before them, filled with different kinds of things that neither one of them wanted to thing about right now. Dean, however, had to pick one up.

“Yikes,” he said, looking at the contents as he out it down and he and Emma continued searching. Along one side there was a wall filled with Polaroid’s, each showing Jared and Lee along with someone different… and always dead. In each picture, Jared and Lee were posing, holding the corpses displayed like a prize trophy kill. Looking at them, Emma picked out the one where they were holding on Jenkins’ corpse.

“I’ll say it again,” Emma said. “Demons I get. People are crazy.”

Dean and Emma made their way up the stairs, the first thing they saw being Pa in the kitchen, butchering something that again the pair did not want to think on too much. Instead they pressed themselves tight against the wall, heading towards the kitchen hopefully unnoticed.

Heading into the other room, Emma saw their main goal as she stood next to a table with a tray full of all different types of keys on them. Now all she had to do was find the right key. She took a quick peak up into the kitchen just in time as Pa turned towards them, Dean and Emma quickly pushing back behind the wall to stat unseen.

Once they knew he had turned away, Dean and Emma again headed towards the tray of keys, Dean as per usually getting distracted by a jar full of teeth beside it. Before they could do more than look, a small creak in the floorboards behind them drew Dean and Emma’s attention. Slowly setting the jar down and turning, they came face to face with Missy, a small girl.

“Shhh. It’s okay,” Dean said to her. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I know,” Missy said confidently. That confidence was soon backed up as she produced two knives, darting forward and using them to pin Dean and Emma to the wall by their jackets.

“Daddy!” she shrieked round the house as Dean and Emma struggled to pull the knives from their jackets, Jared and Lee running down from upstairs. “Daddy!”

Dean and Emma now free, Jared and Lee plowed into the fight, Jared grabbing Dean under his arms while Lee headed for Emma. Before Emma could choose to defend herself, Dean does it for her, jumping up and kicking him. In anger, Jared throws Dean into the wall, the knife falling from his hand. Lee ran at Emma again, Dean no longer there to save her, but she didn’t need it. Before Lee could grab her, Emma grabbed him, pushing him roughly to the ground. Dean punched Jared, thinking he had the upper hand, but he failed to noticed Lee coming up behind him, pushing him into the wall and away from his brother.

All four in the fight stood up, the two sides standing opposite as Dean and Emma faced Jared and Lee. Dean, first, pointed to Jared.

“I’m gonna kick your ass first,” Dean said before switching to point at Lee. “Then yours.”

Without them seeing, Pa moved up behind Dean and Emma. Raising his arm, he hit the both of them across the back of the head with a pan, the pair falling unconscious to the ground.

@~~>~~~

Moving along to the living room, the family had taken the unconscious Dean and Emma and tied them to two separate chairs, facing each other, and were now stood around them.

First to wake was Dean, groaning as he looked round, his eyes focusing on Emma first before the family in front of him.

“Come on. Let us hunt him,” Lee said to Pa now Dean was awake.

“Yeah, this one’s a fighter. Sure would be fun to hunt,” Jared added, getting a laugh from Pa.

“Oh, you gotta be kiddin’ me,” Dean said, everything suddenly fitting into place. “That’s what this is about? You yahoos hunt people?”

“You ever killed before?” Pa asked.

“Well, that depends on what you mean,” Dean told him.

“I’ve hunted all my life,” Pa said. “Just like my father, his before him. I’ve hunted deer and bear, I even got a cougar once. But the best hunt is human. Oh, there’s nothin’ like it. Holdin’ their life in your hands. Seein’ the fear in their eyes just before they go dark. Makes you feel powerful alive.”

“You’re a sick puppy,” Dean told him.

“We give ‘em a weapon,” Pa continued like Dean hadn’t said anything. “Give ‘em a fightin’ chance. It’s kind of like our tradition passed down, father to son. Of course, only one or two a year. Never enough to bring the law down, we never been that sloppy.”

“Yeah, well, don’t sell yourself short,” Dean mumbled. “You’re plenty sloppy.”

“So, what, you with that pretty cop?” Pa asked. “Are you a cop?”

“If I tell you, you promise not to make me into an ashtray?” Dean joked, angering Pa, which only caused Lee to walk over and punch Dean.

“Only reason I don’t let my boys take you right here and now is that there’s somethin’ I need to know,” Pa said angrily, walking to the fireplace and taking out a hot poker.

“Yeah, how ‘bout it’s not nice to marry your sister?” Dean quipped.

“Tell me, any of the cops gonna come lookin’ for you?” Pa asked him, ignoring Dean’s little comments.

“Oh, eat me,” Dean groaned out. “No, no, no, wait, wait… you actually might.”

“You think this is funny?” Pa said. “You brought this down on my family. Alright, you wanna play games? We’ll play some games. Looks like we’re gonna have a hunt tonight after all, boys. And you get to pick the animal. The boy, the cop….”

Going for the finally straw, Pa stepped over to the still unconscious Emma, holding the poker close to her body.

“Or your little sweetheart here?”

“Okay, wait, wait,” Dean said, the last thing he wanted being that poker getting any closer to Emma’s skin. “Look, nobody’s comin’ for me, alright? It’s just us.”

“You don’t choose, I will,” Pa told him, moving back to his side and pressing the poker to his shirt, burning through both the fabric and Dean’s skin, causing him to yell in pain.

“Oh, you son of a bitch!” Dean cried out, watching as Pa moved the poker, this time holding it only inches away from Dean’s eye.

“Next time, I’ll take an eye,” Pa said.

“Alright, the guy, the guy! Take the guy!” Dean finally picked out, choosing Dean as he knew he was the only one who would be able to handle himself in what these people called their sport. Pa now moved the poker away from Dean’s eyes, taking the key from around his neck and handing it to Lee.

“Lee, go do it,” Pa told his son. “Don’t let him out, though. Shoot him in the cage.”

“What?” Dean called out as Lee left the room, panic setting in now at what he thought had been the best choice moments ago. “I thought you said you were gonna hunt him. You were gonna give him a chance.”

“Lee,” Pa called after his son. “When you’re done with the boy, shoot the bitch, too. We’ll leave this girl until last. Better clean this mess up before any more cops come runnin’ out here.”

Dean’s breathing became more erratic as he pulled at his bonds, trying his best to get free. When he thought these people were gonna take Sam out and chase him, give him a sporting chance, that had been ok. Sam could take the strongest beast in a fight and come out with only a few scratches. But if he was just being slaughter in his cage like some wild animal. That he didn’t think Sam had a fair chance of surviving at all.

@~~>~~~

Out in the barn, Sam and Kathleen were still trapped inside their cages when Lee entered and walked over to the control panel.

“What are you doing?” Sam called out to him, but he got no answer. Instead, Lee just unlocked the door to Sam’s cage and walked towards him, gun ready and aimed at Sam. Reaching for all he had, Sam’s hand closed round the bracket on the floor.

Inside the room, where Dean was still conscious and Emma still out of it, they heard a gunshot ring through the house. Just one. And Dean’s heart sank.

“You hurt my brother, I’ll kill you, I swear,” Dean called at the remaining family members surrounding him. “I’ll kill you all. I will kill you all!”

“Lee!” Pa called out through the open, door, but he got no answer from his son.

That was because inside the barn, the cage that had been occupied by Sam was now occupied by both him and Lee, Sam on top of Lee as they battled for the gun. Sam won, taking the gun from his hands and hitting Lee across the face with the barrel hard, knocking him away. Sam turned, aimed the gun at Lee and fired, only to have the thing not fire for him.

In the living room, Dean was still trying to struggle at the binds keeping him tied to the chairs, while Pa was still calling for his son.

“Lee!” Pa tried calling again. Still getting no response, Pa turned to the rest of his family in the room. “Jared, you come with me. Missy, you watch them now.”

Jared grabbed two rifles, handing one to his father as they both left the room. Missy, doing as her father said, remained close to Emma, her little knife positioned dangerously close to her still closed eye. But with a small groan, Emma suddenly came back to reality, gasping and pulling back as she saw just where Missy was standing, and with what.

“Hi honey,” Dean quipped from the other side of the room, bringing Emma’s attention to him. “Nice of you to join us.”

“You’re welcome,” Emma replied.

@~~>~~~

In the now darkened barn, Jared and Pa entered with guns raised, looking round for their other family member.

“Lee! Where are ya? Lee!” Pa called into the barn. Searching, they managed to find him unconscious and locked in Sam’s cage, Kathleen’s cage now empty. “Damn it, Jared, get the lights!” Jared did just that, moving to switch on the light but nothing happened.

“They must have blown the fuses,” Jared told his father. Trying for himself as any man would, Pa found the same thing, that the lights didn’t work.

Moving to search in the dark, Jared staying on the lower levels while Pa climbed a ladder to a second balcony, neither could see where Sam or Kathleen were hiding.

On the lower level, Kathleen moved to a cabinet for cover, pausing when she heard a noise behind her. Hearing that same noise, Jared turned, his gaze falling on the same cabinet. Before even thinking about opening the door, he fired at it, taking the precaution about whatever, or whoever, might be in that cabinet. Satisfied that the contents would be dead, Jared opened the cupboard only to find nothing inside.

Still looking for the source of that noise, Jared was unaware when Kathleen suddenly jumped down from above him, landing on his back, arms wrapped round his neck and trying to wrestle him to the ground. It was her, however, that was knocked onto her back when Jared twisted, throwing her off him. Kathleen defenceless and on her back, Jared pulled his rifle forward, aiming it at her.

“Hey!” Jared heard a voice call behind him and turned with gun aimed, shooting and just missing Sam as he dodged. He didn’t, however, fall to miss his own father who walked in after Sam, the bullet hitting him in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Jared cocked the gun again, turning in search of Sam, only to have him appear behind him and wrench the gun from his hands, hitting him across the face like he did with his other brother, knocking him unconscious.

With another unconscious brother on his hands, Sam locked this one up in Kathleen’s empty cage, moving back over to her as she stood over the wounded Pa, gun trained on him.

“I’ll watch this one. You go ahead,” Kathleen told him, but Sam just stared at her, not moving. “Go ahead.” Trusting in her not to do anything stupid, Sam left her to go find Dean and Emma.

“You hurt my family, I’m gonna bleed you, bitch,” Pa ground out at her.

“You killed my brother,” Kathleen told him in response.

“Your brother?” Pa said with a cruel laugh. “Now I see.”

“Just tell me why,” Kathleen asked.

“Because it’s fun,” Pa answered with a smile and a cackle her way. Wrong answer.

Horrified by this man even after all the awful things she had seen in her life on the police force, Kathleen finally took revenge for her brother’s murder by simply pressing down on the trigger of the rifle.

@~~>~~~

Outside the house, Sam, Dean and Emma were finally reunited again, the ordeal pretty much over as they stumbled out into the night. Walking down the porch steps, they met up with Kathleen, who was walking from the barn.

“Where’s the girl?” Kathleen asked, her police mind kicking in as she was the only one unaccounted for.

“Locked her in a closet,” Emma answered. “What about the dad?”

“Shot,” Kathleen answered after a small pause. “Trying to escape.”

Sam, Dean and Emma said nothing to that. There was nothing to say, they knew the truth. And they also knew exactly what each of them would have done if they were in her situation.

“I think the car’s at the police station,” Dean mumbled to the other two as Kathleen listened in on her walkie-talkie, having to call in this incident.

“Backup unit en route to your location,” the female voice over the radio spoke to Kathleen as she approached Sam, Dean and Emma.

“So, state police and the FBI are gonna be here within the hour. They’re gonna wanna talk to you,” Kathleen told them. “I suggest that you’re both long gone by then.”

“Thanks,” Dean said. “Hey, listen, I don’t mean to press our luck, but we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. Think we could catch a ride?”

“Start walking,” Kathleen said. “Duck if you see a squad car.”

“Sounds great to me. Thanks,” Sam said to her. 

“Listen, uh… I’m sorry about your brother,” Emma said sincerely.

“Thank you,” Kathleen said, beginning to tear up slightly thinking about all this. “It was really hard not knowing what happened to him. I thought it would be easier once I knew the truth… but it isn’t really. Anyway, you should go.”

Sam, Dean and Emma did just that, nodding in acknowledge to the cop as they walked away, Kathleen watching them leave. A few steps down the road, Emma moved closer to Sam, wrapping her arms round him as they walked.

“Never do that again,” she told him.

“Do what?” Sam asked.

“Go missin’ like that,” Emma said, making Sam laugh.

“You were worried about me,” Sam said to the two of them.

“All I’m sayin’ is, you vanish like that again, I’m not lookin’ for ya,” Dean told his brother.

“Sure, you won’t,” Sam said sarcastically, trying to hide his laughter.

“I’m not,” Dean clarififed.

“So, you got sidelined by a thirteen-year-old girl, huh?” Sam said to the pair of them, looking from one to the other.

“Oh, shut up,” Dean muttered.

“Just sayin’,” Sam said, no longer able to contain that smirk. “Gettin’ rusty there, kiddo.”

“Shut up,” both Dean and Emma called back to him, just making him laugh harder.

And the three, now together again, made their way slowly to the car miles away, ready for whatever might come at them next, just so long as they were together.


	16. Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Dean, Sam and Emma are investigating a mysterious murder in Chicago and discover that Meg is responsible for it. However, when they try to catch her, Meg unleashes shadow spirits on them and they realize that not only is she really setting a trap for their father, but they just might find out what really happened the night Emma’s parents died.

Late night, pitch dark, on the back streets of Chicago, Illinois. Not a safe place for anyone to be walking alone, especially a young girl, outside noise blocked by the headphones of her IPod and her music pumping through it. She even failed to mention the burly looking man heading her way, his shoulder almost aggressively bumping into hers with a word of sorry. But the young girl, Meredith, just carried on walking with a shake of her head, still confident alone.

The problem of the noise being blocked was soon fixed as the IPod, with a crackle, gave out, no more music. Meredith did what everyone would have done, shaking the IPod and smacking the sides, but it still wasn’t working.

“Great,” she muttered, taking the headphones out of her ears and wrapping up the IPod. It was then that a strong gust of wind blew around her, scattering garbage and leaves everywhere. “Hello?”

The wind gave no answer. She shook her head, trying to ignore it as she carried on on her way home. But she was still nervous, glancing over her shoulder every now and again, just to be safe. But she was far from safe as she noticed a silhouette travelling across the wall, following her movements, accompanied by an eerie whisper of her name.

Meredith took off at a run, dashing across the street until she finally reached her apartment, frantically grabbing her keys and fumbling her way into her apartment, slamming it shut behind her.

Once inside the relative safety of her apartment, she entered the code into the alarm system, allowing her to step into the room.

“System disarmed,” the computer voice spoke to her before she typed in another code to re-enable it. “System armed.”

Feeling a little safer now, Meredith took a deep breath and wandered into her kitchen, getting a beer from the fridge as she set down her bag and keys. Taking a swig from her beer, Meredith walked back into the living room and pressed play on the answering machine, listening to them.

“Hey, Meredith,” a female voice spoke out from the machine. “It’s Kristen. You have to tell me what happened last night. Call me.”

Another beep and the machine began playing another message. But this time, while Meredith was listening to the message, she failed to notice the shadow that had been following her down the street was now following her round her apartment. The shadow slowly moved towards Meredith, tracing her every move as she paced her room. Now within inches of it’s victim, the shadow held out one sharp-nailed hand, plunging it straight through Meredith’s chest at the heart, her blood splattering high across her own walls.

@~~>~~~

One week later and Sam, Dean and Emma have heard of this terrible incident and, seeing with their hunter minds, knew that what killed this woman wasn’t human. Dressed in alarm system employee outfits and Dean carrying a toolbox, the trio headed towards Meredith’s apartment.

“All right, this is the place,” Sam told the other two.

“You know, I’ve gotta say Em, Dad and me did just fine without these stupid costumes,” Dean said, pulling at his jumpsuit. “I feel like a high school drama dork.”

“What was that play that you did?” Emma asked Sam with a small smile. “What was it… Our Town. Yeah, you were good, it was cute.”

“Look, you wanna pull this off or not?” Sam said.

“I’m just sayin’,” Dean continued. “These outfits cost hard-earned money, okay?”

“Whose?” Sam asked.

“Ours. You think credit card fraud is easy?” Dean said, striding in front of the other two.

@~~>~~~

Inside Meredith’s apartment, Sam, Dean and Emma were let in by the landlady.

“Thanks for lettin’ us look around,”

“Well, the police said they were done with the place, so….” she said, Sam and Emma following her into the main area of the apartment while Dean closed the door behind them. It was there he noticed the chain across the door, broken, before he followed into the living room to see blood spots covering the carpet. “You guys said you were with the alarm company?”

“That’s right,” Dean answered.

“Well, no offence, but your alarm’s about as useful as boobs on a man,” the landlady said, Sam, Dean and Emma looking puzzled.

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Emma continued after a moment. “To see what went wrong and stop it from happening again.”

“Now, ma’am, you found the body?” Sam asked the landlady.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Right after it happened?” Sam asked.

“No. Few days later,” the landlady told them. “Meredith’s work called, she hadn’t shown up. I knocked on the door. That’s when I noticed the smell.”

“Any windows open?” Dean asked. “Any sign of break-in?”

“No,” the landlady answered. “Windows were locked, front door was bolted. Chain was on the door, we had to cut it just to get in.”

“And the alarm was still on?” Emma asked.

“Like I said, bang-up job your company’s doin’,” the landlady quipped.

“Mm hmm,” Emma said, not in the mood to defend the compant she fictionally worked for. “You see any overturned furniture, broken glass, signs of struggle?”

“Everything was in perfect condition,” the landlady said with a shake of her head. “Except Meredith.”

“And what condition was Meredith in?” Sam asked.

“Meredith was all over. In pieces,” the landlady answered. “The guy who killed her must have been some kind of a whackjob. But I tell you, if I didn’t know any better, I’d have said a wild animal did it.”

At the word ‘animal’ Dean looked over at Sam and Emma, really thinking this was right up their alley now.

“Ma’am, do you mind if we take some time?” Sam asked. “Give this place a once-over?”

“Oh, well, go right ahead. Knock yourself out,” the landlady said, leaving them to their work. Once she was gone, Dean opened the toolbox and took out their kind of tools, an EMF meter.

“So,” Emma began with a recap. “A killer walks in and out of the apartment, no weapons, no prints, nothin’.”

“I’m tellin’ ya, the minute I found that article, I knew this was our kind of gig,” Sam said.

“I think I agree with you,” Dean said as the EMF meter in his hands began beeping frantically seconds after he switched it on.

“So, you talked to the cops?” Emma asked Dean.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean answered. “I spoke to Amy, a, uh, charming, perky officer of the law.”

“Yeah? What’d you find out?” Emma asked him.

“Well, she’s a Sagittarius. She loves tequila, I mean… wow. Oh, and she’s got this little tattoo….” Dean began spieling off his list. All too used to this sort of thing with her boyfriend now, Emma simply walked over to him, smacking him across the back of his head to get his attention back on target.

“Dean!” Emma ground out.

“What?” Dean said, only to get a glare from Emma, yet again telling him to stay on topic. “Yeah. Uh, nothin’ we don’t already know. Except for one thing they’re keepin’ out of the papers.”

“Hm?” Sam asked.

“Meredith’s heart was missing,” Dean told them.

“Her heart?” Sam questioned.

“Yeah. Her heart,” Dean repeated.

“So, what do you think did it to her?” Sam asked.

“Well, the landlady said it looked like an animal attack,” Dean surmised. “Maybe it was… werewolf? 

“No, no werewolf, the lunar cycle’s not right,” Emma shot that theory down. “Plus, if it was a creature, it would’ve left some kind of trace. It’s probably a spirit.” While Emma had been speaking, Dean had only been half listening as he concentrated on the blood spots on the carpet.

“See if you can find any masking tape around,” Dean asked the two of them.

Once he had the masking tape in hand, Sam and Emma watched as Dean tore of pieces, arranging them against the spots of blood like a connect-the-dots puzzle. And the finished product was an unusual symbol.

“Ever see that symbol before?” Sam asked.

“Never,” Dean said.

“Me neither,” Emma added.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, Sam, Dean and Emma took their research to the local bar. Dean, as usual was the firs there. And, as usual, he was also stood flirting with the barmaid. Sam and Emma entered the bar not to long after, Dean watching them sit at a table.

With a smile and a goodbye to the barmaid, Dean moved to sit with them, beside Emma, while Sam searched through the pages of the journal.

“I talked to the bartender,” Dean announced.

“Did you get anything?” Emma asked. “Besides her number?”

“I’m a professional. I’m offended that you of all people would think that, babe,” Dean told her. All Emma did was continue staring at him. “All right, yeah.” Dean slapped down the napkin in his hand, showing the barmaids number. Emma just knew that boy much too well.

“You mind doin’ a little bit of thinking with your upstairs brain, Dean?” Emma said with a shake of her head.

“Huh?” Dean said, confused as always. “Look, there’s nothing to find out. I mean, Meredith worked here, she waited tables, everyone here was her friend. Everybody said she was normal. She didn’t do or say anything weird before she died, so…. What about that symbol, you find anything?”

“Nope, nothing,” Sam said. “It wasn’t in Dad’s journal or in any of the usual books. I just have to dig a little deeper, I guess.”

“Well, there was a first victim, right?” Dean asked. “Before Meredith?”

“Right. Yeah,” Sam said, pulling out a newspaper clipping of an obituary. “His name was, uh… his name was Ben Swardstrom. Last month he was found mutilated in his town house. Same deal, the door was locked, the alarm was on.”

While Sam had been telling his story, Emma’s hand had been sneakily reaching across the table, aiming for the napkin with the barmaid’s number on it. And now was when Dean noticed, catching Emma’s eyes as she grinned guilty at him. Dean just smiled back at her, taking the napkin before Emma could and ripping it up, a much bigger gesture to Emma them him stopping flirting. That was just who he was, Emma knew that. Hell, she flirted enough too. Emma’s guilty smile turned softer and Dean leaned across the table, kissing her.

“Is there any connection between the two of them?” Dean asked, his eyes still on Emma.

“Not that I can tell,” Emma answered. “I mean, not yet, at least. Ben was a banker, Meredith was a waitress. They never met, never knew anyone in common. They were practically from different worlds.”

“So, to recap, the only successful intel we’ve scored so far is the bartender’s phone number, and... well,” Dean, said, motioning down to the ripped up pieces of napkin. This time while Dean and Emma had been talking, Sam had been the one who had been somewhat distracted, his attention on something over the other side of the bar that, when looking round, Dean and Emma had no idea what it was. “What?” Dean asked as Sam stood and walked away.

“Sam?” Emma called after him, but he carried on walking to the other side of the bar. And what was waiting for him over there was a blonde girl sat at a table. Tapping her on the shoulder, the girl turned round to reveal someone Sam hadn’t seen for quite some time.

“Meg,” he said, shocked.

“Sam! Is that you? Oh, my God!” Meg said, standing from her seat and hugging a still puzzled Sam. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just in town, visiting friends,” Sam told her.

“Where are they?” Meg asked, looking around.

“Well, they’re not here right now, but what about you, Meg? I thought you were goin’ to California,” Sam asked as Dean and Emma walked up behind him.

“Oh, I did,” Meg said. “I came, I saw, I conquered. Oh, and I met what’s-his-name, something Michael Murray at a bar.”

“Who?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, the whole scene got old, so I’m living here for a while.”

Behind the two, Dean cleared his throat loudly, trying to get attention, but was ignored.

“You’re from Chicago?”

“No, Massachusetts, Andover. Gosh, Sam, what are the odds we’d run into each other?”

“Yeah, I know, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Well, I’m glad you were wrong.” Again, Dean cleared his throat for attention, this time louder. And this time he got it as Meg turned to him. “Dude, cover your mouth.”

“Yeah, um, I’m sorry, Meg,” Sam said, also only just realising Dean and Emma were behind him. “This is, uh… this is my brother, Dean, and his girlfriend, Emma.”

“This is Dean?” Meg said in surprise.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

“So, you’ve heard of me?” Dean said with a smirk.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of you,” Meg said. “Nice, the way you treat your brother like luggage.”

“Sorry?” Dean said, confused.

“Why don’t you let him do what he wants to do?” Meg yelled at him. “Stop dragging him over God’s green earth.”

“Meg, it’s all right,” Sam tried to calm her down, leaving the four in a rather uncomfortable silence.

“Okay, awkward,” Emma eventually said with a low whistle. “We’re gonna get a drink now.” Taking her boyfriend by the arm, Emma guided him away to the bar, his eyes still watching Sam with a puzzled look.

“Sam, I’m sorry,” Meg said. “It’s just… the way you told me he treats you.... If it were me, I’d kill him.”

“It’s all right,” Sam said. “He means well.”

“Well, we should hook up while you’re in town,” Meg told him. “I’ll show you a hell of a time.”

“You know what, that sounds great. Why don’t you, uh… why don’t you give me your number?” Sam said, taking out his cell phone, putting in Meg’s number as she gave it to him. “You know what, I never got your last name.”

“Masters,” Meg told him.

“Masters?” Sam questioned, to which Meg nodded.

“So, you better call,” Meg said with a smile.

“Scout’s Honor,” Sam said.

“I hope to see you around, Sam,” Meg said, to which Sam smiled and walked away.

@~~>~~~

Outside the bar, Sam was now stood with Dean and Emma again, lost in thought as they headed to the car. Tons of questions about Meg and the two times they that had ‘accidentally’ bumped into each other now were battling with each other for supremacy.

“Who the hell was she?” Dean’s voiced broke into his mind.

“I don’t really know. I only met her once,” Sam said, still slightly distracted. “Meeting up with her again? I don’t know, man, it’s weird. 

“And what was she saying? I treat you like luggage?” Dean said angrily. “What, were you bitchin’ about me to some chick?”

“Look, I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam said, trying to nullify his brother. “It was when we had that huge fight when I was in that bus stop in Indiana. But that’s not important, just listen….”

“Well, is there any truth to what she’s saying?” Dean said, really not letting this go. “I mean, am I keeping you against your will, Sam?”

“No, of course not,” Sam answered. “Now, would you listen?”

“What?” Dean said, anger still in his voice.

“I think there’s somethin’ strange going on here, Dean,” Sam said.

“Yeah, tell me about it. She wasn’t even that into me,” Dean said.

“No, man, I mean like our kind of strange,” Sam said, trying to get him on the professional topic. “Like, maybe even a lead.”

“Why do you say that?” Emma said, working with Sam on this one.

“I met Meg weeks ago,” Sam began to retell. “Literally on the side of the road. And now, I run into her in some random Chicago bar? I mean, the same bar where a waitress was slaughtered by something supernatural? You don’t think that’s a little weird?”

“I don’t know, random coincidence,” Emma suggested. “It happens.”

“Yeah, it happens,” Sam agreed. “But not to us. Look, I could be wrong, I’m just sayin’ that there’s something about this girl that I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Well, I bet you’d like to. I mean, maybe she’s not a suspect, maybe you’ve got a thing for her, huh?” Dean said with a smirk. Sam just rolled his eyes with a small laugh. “Maybe you’re thinkin’ a little too much with your upstairs brain, huh?” As he pointed to his head, Sam and Emma just looked at him, Emma moving closer to touch his chest.

“It’s a good job you’re good looking, honey,” Emma told him.

“Do me a favour,” Sam said, getting back on topic. “Check and see if there’s really a Meg Masters from Andover, Massachusetts, and see if you can’t dig anything up on that symbol on Meredith’s floor.”

“What are you gonna do?” Emma asked.

“I’m gonna watch Meg,” Sam told them simply.

“Yeah, you are,” Dean said with another cheeky grin.

“I just wanna see what’s what,” Sam defended himself. “Better safe than sorry.”

“All right, you little pervert,” Dean quipped.

“Dude,” Sam said to him.

“We’re goin’, we’re goin’,” Emma said, linking her arm through Dean’s and the pair of them heading across the round and to the motel.

@~~>~~~

Back in their motel room, Dean and Emma were sat at the table, laptop open in front of them and a number of different books and research papers around, all one the same thing. Looking for information about the symbol they had found in Meredith’s apartment, and on Meg. And, despite not, having Sam, they had done pretty well. Which was why Emma was on her cell trying to contact Sam.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice answered.

“Let me guess,” Emma said. “You’re lurkin’ outside that poor girl’s apartment, aren’t you?”

“No,” Sam said, even though right now he was in fact sat in the car in front of Meg’s apartment, watching for anything strange. And Emma knew that, which was why she kept quiet, waiting for a different answer. “Yes.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showin’ your affection,” Emma laughed.

“Did you find anything on her or what?” Sam said defensively.

“Sorry, doll, she checks out,” Emma told him. “There is a Meg Masters in the Andover phonebook. I even pulled up her high school photo.”

“Tell him to go knock on her door and, uh, invite her to a poetry reading, or whatever it is he does,” Dean interrupted her from behind her.

“You hear him?” Emma asked into the phone.

“What about the symbol?” Sam asked Emma, ignoring Dean’s comment. “Any luck?”

“Yeah, that I did have some luck with,” Emma said, going back to her research. “It’s, uh… turns out it’s Zoroastrian. Very, very old school, like two thousand years before Christ. It’s a sigil for a Daeva.”

“What’s a Daeva?” Sam asked.

“It translates to ‘demon of darkness’,” Emma said. “Zoroastrian demons, and they’re savage, animalistic, you know, nasty attitudes. Kind of like, uh, demonic pit bulls.”

“How’d you figure that out?” Sam questioned with a smirk.

“Give me some credit,” Emma said. “You don’t have a corner on paper chasin’ around here.”

“You, yeah, but Dean? Name the last book he read,” Sam said. Emma turned to look at Dean beside her, who was sat with the same bored look he had had since they started their research.

“You’re right,” Emma said with a small laugh. “No, we called your Dad’s friend, Caleb. He told us.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, looking up at Meg’s darkened bedroom window, still no movement.

“Anyway, here’s the thing,” Emma continued. “These Daevas, they have to be summoned, conjured.”

“So, someone’s controlling it?” Sam surmised.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’,” Emma said. “And, from what I gather, it’s pretty risky business, too. These suckers tend to bite the hand that feeds them. And, uh, the arms, and torsos.”

“So, what do they look like?” Sam asked.

“Well, nobody knows, but nobody’s seen ‘em for a couple of millennia,” Emma said. “I mean, summoning a demon that ancient? Someone really knows their stuff. I think we’ve got a major player in town.”

“Right,” Sam said.

“Give me the phone,” Dean said, reaching towards Emma for it.

“I’m talking,” Emma replied, moving out of his reach.

“Emma….” Dean ground out, lunging for the phone this time. But Emma kept a tight hold of it, and Sam could only listen to the sounds of thuds and thumps on the other end as the two fought for the piece of equipment.

“Stop being a kid, Dean, let go of the phone!” Emma screamed at him.

“You stop being a kid, Emma, and just give me it!” Dean said, finally wrenching the phone from Emma’s grip, giving her a smug look. Emma just thumped him hard as she could across the arm and sulked in her chair.

“Sam?” Dean said into the retrieved phone. “Now, why don’t you go give that girl a private strip-o-gram?”

“Bite me,” Sam snapped out at him.

“No, bite her. Don’t leave teeth marks, though….” Dean began, but Sam just hung up on him. “Sam? Are you…?” But Sam wasn’t there. Dean hung up as well, turning to look at Emma with a somewhat apologetic smile, or his version of one, but Emma just glared at him and turned away.

@~~>~~~

Still sat outside Meg’s apartment, Sam looked up just in time to see the lights switch on as Meg entered her bedroom, wearing nothing but a black lace bra. Sam looks just a little uncomfortable for a second, before the greater good of needing to know what she was up to won out and he went back to watching her as she put on a T-shirt.

The sound of someone clearing their throat inches away from him drew Sam’s attention to his side window, where a young woman was staring in at him before gesturing up towards Meg’s window.

“Oh, no, no, no, I’m just….” Sam began.

“Pervert,” the woman spat out at him before walking angrily away from a stunned Sam. But his attention was drawn again by the sound of a door opening and Sam turned to see Meg, dressed in a sweatshirt and jacket now, walking across the street. She glanced at the parked car once, but Sam had ducked down out of view, sliding back up once she had gone, and stepping out of the car to follow her one foot.

He followed Meg until she stopped at a graffiti-covered wall, looking around for any prying eyes before pulling back part of the wall which seemed to turn into a door. Once she was inside, Sam did the same, peering round the building before following her through the wall.

Walking inside the building, Sam was far enough behind Meg to walk up a flight of stairs and to a door, which he couldn’t open. Looking around for another way in, Sam found an open elevator gate, using that to climb steadily to the top floor. At the top, Sam could just about see through the gate into a dimly lit room where he could just about see Meg. T  
There she was, stood before a black altar with a silver bowl in her hand that seemed to be filled with… blood.

Sam continued to watch as Meg spoke an incantation in some foreign language while swirling her finger in the blood, the blood still swirling on it’s own as Meg then went on to speak to a voice only she seemed to be able to hear.

“I don’t think you should come,” Meg said, waiting and listening to the response she could hear. “Because the three of them, they’re in town, I didn’t know that….” The unseen voice responded.

“Yes, sir.” Meg again waited for the unseen voice. “Yes, I’ll be here, waiting for you.”

Meg sat the bowl down, blowing out the candles and leaving the room as Sam looked on, confused at just what he had seen. When he had thought that maybe Meg had been involved with something, it hadn’t been this.

Heaving himself the rest of the way into the room through the elevator shaft, Sam walked to the altar to get a better look at it. There were a couple of ancient items, the missing hearts from the victims round town, but the thing that got Sam’s attention was the Zoroastrian symbol drawn in blood in the centre of the table.

@~~>~~~

Making his way back to the hotel, Sam was two steps through the door before he was quickly ambushed by Dean and Emma.

“I gotta talk to you,” all three voices spoke out at once.

@~~>~~~

Sam was the one to speak first, bringing Dean and Emma up to date on just what he had seen inside the abandoned building.

“So, hot little Meg is summoning the Daeva?” Dean said once he was filled in.

“Looks like she was using that black altar to control the thing,” Sam told them.

“So, Sammy’s got a thing for the bad girl,” Dean said with a chuckle, Sam rolling his eyes. “And what’s the deal with that bowl again?”

“She was talking into it,” Sam said. “The way witches used to scry into crystal balls or animal entrails. She was communicating with someone.”

“With who? With the Daeva?” Dean asked.

“No, you said those things were savages,” Sam said. “No, this was someone different. Someone who’s giving her orders. Someone who’s comin’ to that warehouse.”

Listening to this, Emma spoke for a moment before a thought, what she and Dean had been about to say when Sam had entered, suddenly came back to her and she flipped through the files on the table.

“Holy crap,” Emma muttered.

“What?” Sam asked.

“What we were gonna tell you earlier,” Emma told him. “Dean pulled a favor with his… friend, Amy, over at the police department. The complete records of the two victims, we missed something the first time.”

“What?” Sam repeated, coming over to look at the records.

“The first victim, the old man. He spent his whole life in Chicago, but he wasn’t born here. Look where he was born,” Emma said, pointing to part of the page.

“Lawrence, Kansas,” Sam read off.

“Mm hmm,” Emma said, picking up the second file. “Meredith, second victim, turns out she was adopted. And guess where she’s from.” Emma pushes the file towards him, which reads ‘Lawrence, Kansas’ as the birth place. Shocked, Sam sits on the table across from Dean and Emma.

“Holy crap,” Sam parroted Emma’s early statement.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed.

“I mean, it is where the demon killed Mom,” Sam continued. “That’s where everything started. So, you think Meg’s tied up with the demon?”

“I think it’s a definite possibility,” Dean said.

“But I don’t understand,” Sam said. “What’s the significance of Lawrence? And how do these Daeva things fit in?”

“Beats me,” Dean said with a shrug. “But I say we trash that black altar, grab Meg, and have ourselves a friendly little interrogation.”

“No, we can’t,” Sam told him. “We shouldn’t tip her off. We’ve gotta stake out that warehouse. We’ve gotta see who, or what, is showin’ up to meet her.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Emma added. “I don’t think we should do this alone.”

@~~>~~~

Sam and Dean were in total agreement that they needed help, which was why Dean was now sat on the bed beside Emma in the motel room, leaving a message on his voicemail.

“We think we’ve got a serious lead on the thing that killed Mom,” Dean continued on the phone. “So, uh, this warehouse, it’s 1435 West Erie. Dad, if you get this, get to Chicago as soon as you can.”

As he hung up, Sam walked back into the motel room, lugging a bag behind him.

“Voicemail?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dean said as Emma gestured to the bag in his hand.

“Jesus, what’d you get?” she asked.

“I ransacked that trunk,” Sam said with a chuckle, dumping the bag onto the other bed. “Holy water, every weapon that I could think of, exorcism rituals from about a half dozen religions. I’m not sure what to expect, so I guess we should just expect everything.”

Dean nodded as he and Emma stood up, all three of them loading and checking the weapons in silence.

“Big night,” Dean suddenly said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Sam answered simply.

“You nervous?” Emma asked the boys.

“No,” they answered together, a little too quickly.

“Why, are you?” Dean asked Emma.

“No. No way,” Emma said, knocking the room into silence for a second time.

“God, could you imagine if we actually found that damn thing?” Sam suddenly said, a cheerful tone to his voice. “That demon?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right?” Dean said.

“I know. I’m just sayin’, what if we did?” Sam went on. “What if this whole thing was over tonight? Man, I’d sleep for a month. Go back to school, be a person again.”

“You wanna go back to school?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, once we’re done huntin’ the thing,” Sam answered truthfully.

“Huh,” Dean said simply.

“Why, is there somethin’ wrong with that?” Sam asked.

“No,” Dean said, again too quickly. “No, it’s, uh, great. Good for you.”

“I mean, what are you gonna do when it’s all over?” Sam asked both Dean and Emma.

“Its never gonna be over,” Emma chose to answer this one. “There’s gonna be others. There’s always gonna be somethin’ to hunt.”

“But there’s got to be somethin’ that you want for yourself….” Sam began.

“Yeah, I don’t want you to leave the second this thing’s over, Sam,” Emma interrupted, turning her back on Sam to walk to the dresser.

“What’s your problem?” Sam asked. Both Dean and Emma remained silent for the moment, Dean walking over to stand beside Emma before turning round to Sam.

“Why do you think I drag you everywhere? Huh?” Dean said, backing Emma up on this one. “I mean, why do you think I came and got you at Stanford in the first place?”

“‘Cause Dad was in trouble,” Sam answered. “‘Cause you wanted to find the thing that killed Mom.”

“Yes, that, but it’s more than that, man,” Dean said, the room hitting a moment of silence again. “You and me and Emma and Dad…. I mean, I want us… I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again.”

“Dean, we are a family,” Sam clarified. “I’d do anything for you. But things will never be the way they were before.”

“Could be,” Dean said, the heartbreak clear in his voice.

“I don’t want them to be,” Sam said. “I'm not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you’re gonna have to let me go my own way.”

And those words just added to the heartbreak for both Dean and Emma.

@~~>~~~

Back at the warehouse, Dean and Emma were following Sam up the same way he had gone in last time, Meg already up and in front of the black altar, chanting in that foreign language. Once out of the elevator shaft and inside the building, Sam, Dean and Emma crept round the back of the room, hiding behind crates, unnoticed.

“Guys,” Meg’s voice suddenly rung out in English, their hiding place not so hidden. “Hiding’s a little bit childish, don’t you think?”

“Well, that didn’t work out like I planned,” Dean muttered to the other two as Meg turned towards their position.

“Why don’t you come out?” Meg called, and the trio did, their guns cautiously out in the open in front of them. “Sam, I have to say, this puts a real crimp in our relationship.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean said.

“So, where’s your little Daeva friend?” Dean asked.

“Around,” Meg said, the innocent girl now gone. “You know, that shotgun’s not gonna do much good.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart. The shotgun’s not for the demon,” Emma said.

“So, who is it, Meg?” Sam asked. “Who’s coming? Who are you waiting for?”

“You,” Meg answered.

Just then, the shadows that had stalked Meredith began to form on the walls, a group of them stalking towards Sam, Dean and Emma at the back of the room. Sam was the first to go, his feet taken from under him as Dean and Emma were thrown backwards, knocked heavily into the back brick wall. That same sharp-nailed hand rose at Sam, slashing down to form a slash across his cheek. The first bodily sign of trauma before he was knocked unconscious along with Dean and Emma.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, none of them were sure how long later, Sam woke up to find himself tied to one of the posts in the warehouse. He looked round to see Meg in front of him, and Dean and Emma tied together to the other post beside him.

“Hey, Sam?” Emma said, seeing Sam awake. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your girlfriend... is a bitch.”

“This, the whole thing, was a trap,” Sam spoke to Meg. “Running into you at the bar, following you here, hearin’ what you had to say. It was all a set-up, wasn’t it? And that the victims were from Lawrence?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Meg clarified. “It was just to draw you in, that’s all.”

“You killed those two people for nothin’,” Sam said.

“Baby, I’ve killed a lot more for a lot less,” Meg said.

“You trapped us,” Dean said, bringing her attention to him. “Good for you. It’s Miller time. But why don’t you kill us already?”

“Not very quick on the uptake, are we?” Meg said, moving closer to Dean. “This trap isn’t for you.”

Sam and Dean were puzzled by her words, but Emma was quicker on the uptake.

“John,” Emma said. “It’s a trap for your Dad.”

“I guess woman really are smarter,” Meg said with a smile at Dean, telling them Emma was right.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Dean said with a smirk of his own. “You’re dumber than you look. 'Cause even if Dad was in town, which he is not, he wouldn’t walk into something like this. He’s too good.”

“He is pretty good. I’ll give you that,” Meg said, moving even closer to Dean so she was straddling his outstretched legs. “But you see, he has one weakness.”

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“You. He lets his guard down around you three, lets his emotions cloud his judgment. I happen to know he is in town. And he’ll come and try to save you. And then the Daevas will kill everybody, nice and slow and messy,” Meg said to Dean before turning to Emma. “Exactly how a sweet and innocent little 7 year old girl found her parents, am I right?”

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked.

“Honey, don’t tell me you never wondered,” Meg said to her. “Never wanted to know what happened that night. Just what killed your parents.”

When she spoke next, Emma’s teeth were gritted tightly together, this topic clearly not one of her top ones to discuss.

“Are you gonna get to a point, or are you just rambling on again?” Emma said.

“Using humour to hide those nasty little feelings, just like your boy here,” Meg said. “That was the reason you know, to get you closer to this family.”

“Ok, I’ll bite,” Emma said. “Reason for what?”

“Reason why these Daevas of mine were sent to tear your parents from limb to limb all those years ago,” Meg said bluntly, the implications making Emma gasp at the news. “Because your parents would never have listened, never trusted John Winchester. And we needed you with them, right where you are now. So they had to go.”

Emma turned her head away from Meg, feeling the tears beginning to rise to the surface.

“Don’t believe me?” Meg continued. “You saw young Meredith’s body, saw the condition she was in. Don’t tell me that didn’t bring back some memories?”

And those tears escaped, leaking beneath her eyelids to roll down Emma’s cheek. At the time, Meredith’s body had been just another case. But now she could see it in her mind, see just how close to her parent’s murder scene that one had looked. At the time of her parent’s murders, there had been no one there with Dean’s supernatural mind to point out that the blood stains really were a symbol, they were just blood stains. That had been what had thrown her. But no, unfortunately for Emma, it was all coming back.

Like Emma had told Missouri, she had stopped looking for her parent’s killers quite some years ago. She had got too involved in the boys and their lives, pushing it to the back of her mind. To find out this way, from Meg just to taunt her, was the worse way she could imagine. But what was worse was knowing that she was the primary reason why her parent’s died in the first place. All so she could lead the life she was now.

Her face turned away from Meg and towards Dean, he couldn’t miss that tear drop rolling down her skin.

“Oh, you just love the sound of your voice, don’t you?” Dean said, trying to pull Meg’s attention back to him.

“Oh, Dean, coming to your girls rescue,” Meg said with a smirk at him. “Not that it matters, of course. After John, it’s your turn.”

“Well, I’ve got news for ya,” Dean told her. “It’s gonna take a lot more than some… shadow to kill him.”

“Oh, the Daevas are in the room here, they’re invisible,” Meg said. “Their shadows are just the only part you can see.”

“Why you doin’ this, Meg?” Sam spoke up again. “What kind of deal you got worked out here, huh? And with who?”

“I’m doing this for the same reasons you do what you do,” Meg told them. “Loyalty. Love. Like the love you had for Mommy… and Jess.”

“Go to hell,” Sam spat out at her.

“Baby, I’m already there,” Meg said, sliding back over to Sam with a smile. “Come on, Sam. There’s no need to be nasty. I think we both know how you really feel about me. You know, I saw you watching me, changing in my apartment. Turned you on, didn’t it?”

“Get a room, you two,” Dean said to them, Emma still sitting perfectly quiet beside him.

“I didn’t mind,” Meg said, ignoring Dean as she began kissing his neck. “I liked that you were watching me. Come on, Sammy. You and I can still have a little dirty fun.”

“You wanna have fun? Go ahead then. I’m a little tied up right now,” Sam told her, and she did, continuing to kiss him. It was a noise from Dean and Emma’s side of the room that stopped her, making her look up and move back to Dean. Stepping behind the post, she saw Dean trying to cut through his ropes with a small knife. Tossing it away into the corner, Meg swung round to face Dean, who smiled at her with a chuckle. Meg simply moved back over to Sam.

“Now, were you just trying to distract me while your brother cuts free?” Meg said to Sam.

“No. No,” Sam replied. “That’s because I have a knife of my own.”

Meg pulled back, looking at Sam confused. But that only lasted a second as Sam pulled his hands that he had been cutting free away, grabbing Meg by the shoulders and head butting her. She toppled back, falling to the ground, allowing Sam to get up.

“Sam! Get the altar,” Dean yelled at his brother from his position still tied to the post. Sam headed right that way, grabbing the table and heaving it over. The contents of the black altar scattered, the demons were no longer under control, so they went after the ones who had put them on a leash: Meg.

Conversing from all over the room to just one point, the demon grabbed Meg kicking and screaming, throwing her from the window to crash down to the street below, sprawled in a rather uncomfortable looking position. One that most definitely meant she was not walking away from this attack.

Meg and the demons dealt with, Sam moved back across the room to free Dean and Emma, the three needing to see proof of her body lay on the floor.

“So, I guess the Daevas didn’t like being bossed around,” Sam said as they looked down through the broken window at Meg.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Dean said. “Hey, Sam? Next time you wanna get laid, find a girl that’s not so buckets-o’-crazy, huh?”

Dean grinned at Sam, turning to Emma just in time to see her silently, like she had been since Meg had spoke to her, walk from the room. Not too keen on her being alone right now, especially considering the way she was limping a little from the first time she had been thrown by the Daeva, Dean was right behind her.

@~~>~~~

Their journey back to their motel had been in relative silence, Sam carrying the bag up the motel stairs now, Dean helping Emma walk along.

“Why didn’t you just leave that stuff in the car?” Dean asked Sam.

“I said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Sam replied. “Better safe than sorry.”

Dean just shook his head as he unlocked the door with his free hand, pushing it open. Before they had chance to flick the light switch, a silhouette of a man stood by the window grabbed their attention.

“Hey!” Dean called as Sam flicked on the lights. The man now turned round, his face bathed in light so the trio could see just who it was. And John Winchester was now stood in front of them.

Sam, Dean and Emma stood in shock. All this time searching, and now here he was, stood in their motel room.

“Dad?” Dean mumbled, his voice sounding like that of a small boy.

“Hey, guys,” John said to the trio.

Having heard the emotion in Dean’s voice, Emma gently pulled herself out of his arms, leaning into the wall to let Dean move forward, embracing his father. From behind them, both Sam and Emma watched this scene.

“Hi, Sam,” John said to his younger son as he and Dean pulled apart.

“Hey, Dad,” Sam said softly, lowering his bag of weapons to the floor. Her footing going, Emma stumbled slightly against the wall, Dean moving to her side in an instant to hold her up, bring John’s attention to her as well.

“Emma, sweetheart,” John said to her softly. “Still looking out for my boys?”

“As always,” Emma said with a small smile before leaning her head closer into Dean’s shoulder, Dean’s arm’s tightening round her.

“What happened?” John asked Dean, noticing this.

“The demons just then,” Dean started. “They… Emma’s parents… they were….”

Despite Dean’s inability to finish that sentence, John knew exactly what he was saying. He moved closer to the pair, taking Emma from Dean and hugging her, doing what he had always done since that fateful day when she had lost her parents. Treating her like the daughter he never had.

“I’m sorry,” John said quietly just to her. Emma leaned into John for a moment, excepting his comfort, before pulling back and letting Dean take over again.

“Dad, it was a trap,” Dean said. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I thought it might’ve been,” John said.

“Were you there?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, I got there just in time to see the girl take the swan dive,” John said. “She was the bad guy, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam and Dean both chorused, falling into their natural role with their father.

“Good,” John said. “Well, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s tried to stop me before.”

“The demon has?” Sam asked.

“It knows I’m close,” John said. “It knows I’m gonna kill it. Not just exorcise it or send it back to hell, actually kill it.”

“How?” Dean asked.

“I’m workin’ on that,” John said with a smile.

“Let us come with you. We’ll help,” Sam said, earning him a warning look from Dean.

“No, Sam,” John said. “Not yet. Just try to understand. This demon is a scary son of a bitch. I don’t want you caught in a crossfire. I don’t want you hurt.”

“Dad, you don’t have to worry about us,” Sam said.

“Of course I do. I’m your father,” John said, pausing for a moment. “Listen, Sammy, last time we were together, we had one hell of a fight.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam answered.

“It’s good to see you again,” John told him. “It’s been a long time.”

“Too long,” Sam said.

And with those few words, that was it. The friction between them was gone and they truly were father and son again as Sam took Dean’s lead, moving forward to embrace his father.

They had only pulled away for a moment, the four sharing an emotion filled look, when the shadow demons were back, throwing both John and Sam across the room.

“No!” Dean called out, but it was too late. He and Emma were next, flying across the room in the opposite direction.

While the four struggled against the demons, none of them knew that outside their motel room, Meg, the girl who had fallen stories from a building, was stood watching the scene unfold, gripping to the pendent round her neck of the Zoroastrian symbol that was controlling them again.

Inside the motel room, Sam, Dean, Emma and John were being thrown round the room, scratches about on their faces as their claws were raised and lowered over and over again. Sam finally managed to pull away from the onslaughts as most of the blows were falling on John, reaching for the weapons bag and pulling out a flare.

“Shut your eyes!” Sam yelled to the other three. “These things are shadow demons, so let’s light ‘em up!”

As they all did, Sam lit the flare, the room instantly filled with smoke and a bright white light, banishing the demons. Coughing and spluttering through the smoke, the four now tried to feel their way round the room.

“Sam, you got him?” Dean yelled randomly into the room.

“Yeah,” Sam said, taking the bag and moving closer to his father and Dean moved over to Emma. The Winchester brother’s taking a hold of their respective family members, the four of them managed to get out of the room, making it out to the parking lot where Dean’s car and John’s truck was, Sam throwing the weapons bag into the trunk.

“Why is it always the women demons pick on?” Emma said as she leant into Dean.

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Dean said, trying to bring back his joking, smiling girlfriend.

“All right, come on. We don’t have much time,” Sam spoke to the other three. “As soon as the flare’s out, they’ll be back.”

“Wait, wait. Sam, wait,” Dean said. “Dad, you can’t come with us.”

“What?” Sam questioned. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“You three, you’re beat to hell,” John said, looking round at the trio in front of him.

“We’ll be all right,” Dean told him.

“Dean, we should stick together. We’ll go after those demons….” Sam began.

“Sam! Listen to me!” Dean called over his brother. “We almost got Dad killed in there. Don’t you understand? They’re not gonna stop, they’re gonna try again. They’re gonna use us to get to him. I mean, Meg was right. Dad’s vulnerable when he’s with us. He’s… he’s stronger without us around.”

“Sam, Dean’s right and you know it,” Emma said softly.

“Dad, no,” Sam said, getting desperate as he grabbed his father’s shoulders. “After everything, after all the time we spent lookin’ for you… please. I gotta be a part of this fight.”

“Sammy,” John said, placing his hand over one of Sam’s. “This fight is just starting. And we are all gonna have a part to play. For now, you’ve got to trust me, son. Okay, you’ve gotta let me go.”

The street was silent for a minute, Dean and Emma watching on close to tears as they waited for Sam’s response. Finally, he smiled softly, patting John’s shoulder but letting go, showing he understood. They all shared an look before John left first, moving to his truck, turning back only once.

“Be careful, guys,” John muttered to himself before getting into his truck and driving away.

“Come on,” Dean said, guiding Sam and Emma over to the car and driving away.

Again, what they failed to notice was Meg watching as the car drove away.

@~~>~~~

The silence back on them, Sam, Dean and Emma continued driving down the road, not even the radio to add sound.

Moving at the same time, both brothers looked into the rear view mirror to check Emma. And what they saw was Emma curled up as small as she could get on the backseat, staring vacantly out of the window. They glanced at each other, not sure what to do. They had never seen their happy, go lucky Emma like this before, and didn’t really know how to react.

“Emma, are you ok?” Dean asked.

“Fine,” Emma said, not even changing her stare.

“I hope you are aware we are about the only two people in the world you can’t lie to,” Sam said, trying to joke with her like Dean had, and succeeding in getting at least a cursory laugh.

“You’re right,” Emma said, wiping a stray tear from her eye. “At least I know what happened now. That’s what I wanted, right?”

Not waiting for a reply from the boys, Emma bowed her head, her gasping breath telling them she was trying to hold back tears.

And out of nowhere, Dean suddenly pulled the car over to the side of the road, killing the engine, Sam looking at him stunned.

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam asked.

“You drive, Sam,” Dean said, getting out of the car.

“What do you…?” Sam began.

“Just drive,” Dean snapped at him.

Sam watched, still slightly stunned, as Dean swapped from front seat to back, sliding into Emma. And that was when Sam didn’t need an explanation, he just did as Dean said and got into the driving seat.

Sitting beside Emma who, still looking out the window, had yet to realise Dean was beside her, he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly as she moved to rest against him. Positioning her better, Dean moved so that his mouth was level with her ear.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered softly into her ear.

Three little words, and the dam broke. Gripping as tight as she could to the folds of his shirt, Emma broke down, crying in sobs. After everything tonight, that was all she had needed. For someone to hold her, be there for her, and that someone was always Dean. Emma was so grateful for that. She was so grateful that whatever might happen in her life, she would always have Dean.

So while Sam continued there drive, Dean remained in the backseat of the car, holding the woman he loved tightly in his arms as she cried herself to sleep.


	17. Hell House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean and Emma investigate the case of a maniacal ghost inhabiting a long abandoned Texas farmhouse known as ‘Hell House’. They believe the ghost is the spirit of a deceased Depression-era farmer who killed his family, but they soon realize it is something far more powerful.

Two months back in the small Texas town of Richardson, a group of four teenagers are walking through to a clearing in the forest, each shivering and bundled up, but still determined.

“Come on, man, is it much further? I’m really cold,” one of the boys called out.

“It should be just up here,” Craig announced, just as the group stepped out into the open to be confronted with the shadowed stature of a large abandoned, and pretty creepy looking, house.

“Whoa,” the only girl of the group gasped.

“There we go,” Craig said.

“How’d you find this place anyway, Thurston?” the boy who spoke before asked.

“My cousin told me about it,” Craig answered.

“Oh, I am so not going in there,” the girl said.

“Wusses,” the other boy ground out.

"Well, we came all the way out here,” Craig said. “Might as well check it out.”

“Let’s just hurry this up and get back to the car, all right? It’s friggin’ cold out here,” his mate said as he a Craig headed towards the house, leaving the girl alone outside with the last remaining boy of the group.

“Want me to hold your hand?” he asked, offering it to her as he saw her shaking. She takes it as the two begin walking. “Are there any other parts I can hold?”

“Ewww,” the girl complained, pulling her hand fiercely from his hold with a disgusted look. “Shut up, you loser!” Giving him a hard shove in the chest, the girl walks on, leaving him standing alone now.

“Oh, come on! What?” the boy called out as he followed her into the house where the other two boys are waiting for them.

Inside, the house was just as dark as it was outside, maybe even more so. In the room they were in, clearly having been a living area when the place had been furnished with something more than the layer of dust everything was coated in now, the walls were painted with all sorts of symbols, some in red, some in black. Symbols that none of the group recognised.

“No way. Look at all this stuff,” the 2nd boy spoke up as he entered last.

“Come on. It’s this way,” Craig said, leading the group away. “They say that he lives in a root cellar. Goes after girls, always girls. Just strings ‘em up.”

“They say?” one of the boys piped up. “Who’s they? Where’d you hear this crap?”

“I told you, my cousin,” Craig answered.

“And where’d she hear it?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know,” Craig answered to that. “She just heard it.”

“Whatever, give me that thing,” the boy mumbled, taking the flashlight from Craig and this time leading the group. He led them through the closes door, which happened to be the cellar door. “Oh, look, it’s the evil root cellar. You know, where Satan cans all his vegetables. Oh, get your candy-asses down here and see for yourselves. It’s just a basement full of skank-filled jars in some crap farmhouse.” Behind him, the rest of the group filled in, all their eyes scanning round.

“I don’t see anything scary. Do you?” he continued with a laugh, turning to face the others. But they weren’t smiling. Instead, their eyes were fixed on something behind the boy, terror visible in all of them. “What? What? What is it?” Turning to where the others were looking, he finally saw.

Hanging from the rafters behind him was a young woman, her lifeless eyes staring out into the room as he body swayed lightly against her weight on the rope.  
And the oh-so-cocky boy was the first to let out a terrified, ear splitting scream.

@~~>~~~

Now in the present day, ghost, monster and down right anything weird hunters Sam and Dean Winchester, along with Emma Gray, our driving down the interstate to their latest hunt. Emma is driving, Dean in the seat beside her, while Sam dozes peacefully behind them. Seeing this however, Dean is in the mood to interrupt Sam’s peace.

Taking a plastic spoon from the glove box in front of him, Dean cautiously sticks it into Sam’s mouth, thankfully not waking him. He does, however, grab Emma’s attention as she watches him, one eye on the road one in the rear view mirror.

“You’re cruel, you know that,” she says with a laugh.

“Yeah, but its fun,” is Dean’s only answer as he takes out a cell phone to take a snap shot of his sleeping brother. With a laugh, Emma finally relents, letting Dean turn up the volume on the radio, and even singing along with him as it blares out.

“A fire of unknown origin took my baby away!” the pair sing-along, rudely waking Sam, who immediately spits the spoon out as Dean and Emma, still laughing over the heavy music, drum along to the beat on the steering wheel and dashboard.

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Sam grates out, reaching forward to lower down the blaring rock music.

“Sorry,” Dean said, although the little chuckle takes away it’s meaning. “Not a lot of scenery here in east Texas, you kind of gotta make your own.

“You know, you’re not kids anymore, guys,” Emma says, laughing herself. “You’re not gonna start that crap up again.”

“Start what up?” Dean asks.

“That prank stuff,” Sam finishes before Emma does. “It’s stupid, and it always escalates.”

“Oh, what’s the matter, Sammy, you afraid you’re gonna get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?” Dean challenges with a smile.

“All right,” Sam says, accepting the challenge. “Just remember, you started it.”

“Oh, bring it on, Baldy,” Dean retorts.

“Where are we, anyway?” Sam asked, bringing the conversation back round to their job.

“Few hours outside of Richardson,” Dean answered. “Give me the lowdown again.”

“All right,” Sam said, reaching forward to grab the piece of paper resting on the dashboard. “About a month or two ago, this group of kids goes pokin’ around in this local haunted house.”

“Haunted by what?”

“Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit. Legend goes, it takes girls and strings 'em up in the rafters.”

“Girls again,” Emma interjects. “Why is it always male ghosts that go after girls? Do they like, form a little club once their dead or something? Like they don’t do enough when they’re friggin’ alive!”

Sam and Dean merely watched Emma, waiting for her to finish her little rant. They knew by know it was just her way of getting things out, constantly stuck in a car and motel room with two boys, whether she loved them both unconditionally or not. No matter how many times she complained about them, she’d never leave. She had far too much fun with the Winchester boys. 

So they just waited until she was finished, Sam continuing on with the details of their latest case like she hadn’t said anything.

“Anyway, this group of kids see this dead girl hangin’ in the cellar.”

“Anybody ID the corpse?”

“Well, that’s the thing. By the time the cops got there, the body was gone. So, cops are sayin’ the kids were just yankin’ chains.”

“Well, maybe the cops are right.”

“Maybe,” Emma said, this time putting in something to do with the case. “But I read a couple of the kids’ firsthand accounts. They seem pretty sincere.”

“Where’d you read these accounts?” Dean asked her.

“Well, I knew we were gonna be passing through Texas. So, uh, last night I searched some local….paranormal websites,” Emma said, causing Dean to roll his eyes at her. “And I found one.”

“And what’s it called?” Dean asked. Emma looked at him, reluctant to answer the question and biting at her bottom lip. Dean just smiled, having to admit that she really did look cute when she did that.

“Hell Hound’s Lair dot com,” she finally admitted.

“Let me guess,” Dean said. “Streaming live out of Mom’s basement.”

“Yeah, probably,” Emma agreed with a little laugh.

“Yeah, most of those websites wouldn’t know a ghost if it bit ‘em in the persqueeter,” Dean continued.

“Look,” Sam interjected. “We let Dad take off, which was a mistake, by the way. And now, we don’t know where the hell he is, so, in the meantime, we’ve got to find ourselves something to hunt. There’s no harm checkin’ this thing out.”

“All right,” Dean said, giving in. “So, where do we find these kids?”

“Same place you always find kids in a town like this,” Sam replied.

@~~>~~~

That place happened to be the local Rodeo Drive-In café. And, as suspected, three of the four teenagers from that night two months ago were all sat around, pretty eager to answer Sam, Dean and Emma’s questions. But eager did not mean accurate, as the trio soon found out.

When asked what the house was like, they found out that the walls were painted in blood, black paint, or even nothing, as the girl had her eyes closed the whole time.

When asked about the girl, they were told she had blonde, black or even red hair, and she was hanging from the rafters, both kicking and lifeless. And, from one boy, they even got the reply that she was kinda hot, in a dead sort of way!

There was only one thing that all three seemed to think alike on. When asked how they found out about the place, they all gave the same answer.

Craig took them.

@~~>~~~

Since their best bet for information now seemed to be Craig Thurston, that’s who the trio needed to talk to next, finding him at his place of work, the local record store.

“Gentlemen, lady,” Craig said in greeting as they walked up to him. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah, are you Craig Thurston?” Sam asked him.

“I am,” Craig answered.

“Well, we’re reporters with the Dallas Morning News,” Emma told him. “I’m Emma, this is Sam and Dean.”

“No way,” Craig said with a wide smile. “Yeah, I’m a writer, too. I write for my school’s lit magazine.”

“Oh, good for you, Morrison,” Emma said with a smile of her own, this one slightly strained.

“We’re doing an article on local hauntings, and rumour has it you might know about one,” Sam added.

“You mean the Hell House?” Craig said enthusiastically.

“That’s the one,” Dean said.

“I didn’t think there was anything to the story,” Craig replied.

“Why don’t you tell us the story?” Sam asked.

“Well,” Craig began. “Supposedly, back in the thirties, this farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, used to live in the house with his six daughters. It was during the Depression. His crops were failing. He didn’t have enough money to even feed his own children. So, I guess that’s when he went off the deep end.”

“How?” Sam encouraged him to go on.

“Well, he figured it was best if his girls died quick rather than starve to death,” Craig continued. “So he attacked them. They screamed, begged for him to stop. But he just strung them up, one after another. And then, when he was all finished, he turned around and hung himself. Now, they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringin’ up any other girl who goes inside.”

“But where’d you hear all this?” Dean asked, still trying to get to the point of all this.

“My cousin, Dana, told me,” Craig answered. “I don’t know where she heard it from. You’ve gotta realize I didn’t believe this for a second.”

“But now you do?” Emma asked him.

“I don’t know what the hell to think, man,” Craig said. “Guys, I’ll tell you exactly what I told the police, okay? That girl was real, and she was dead. This was not a prank. I swear to God, I don’t wanna go anywhere near that house ever again, okay?”

“Thanks,” Emma said as the group turned to leave, exchanging a look with the brothers. The other three teenagers might have come up with nothing, but after talking to Craig, they were beginning to think their ‘it-was-all-a-hoax’ theory was slowly getting thinner and thinner. And that one was their favourite.

@~~>~~~

Having got all the information they were likely to get out of the four who had been there that night, Sam, Dean and Emma now figured it was time to go look into the house themselves. And even they had to admit they didn’t much like what they saw.

“Can’t say I blame the kid,” Sam said as they began to approach the old house that really did look like something right of the screen of a good horror movie.

“Yeah, so much for curb appeal,” Emma said, Sam giving a small laugh as they moved round the outside of the building, EMF meters out and beeping.

“You got somethin’?” Sam asked Dean.

“Yeah,” Dean answered, while Emma was looking round.

“The EMF’s no good,” Emma said, turning her own off and slipping it back into her pocket.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“I think that thing’s still got a little juice in it,” Emma said, nodding to the nearby telephone pole. “It’s gotta be screwin’ with all the readings.”

“Yeah, that’d do it,” Sam agreed, him and Dean both switching their own off.

“Yep. Come on, let’s go,” Dean said, walking them actually inside the house now.

Once inside, they saw exactly the same thing as the teenagers had. A dark room with painted symbols on the walls, only this group were a lot more likely to recognise those symbols.

“Looks like Old Man Murdoch was a bit of a tagger during his time,” Dean said as they all looked round at the walls, Emma with her phone out to take pictures for future reference.

“And after his time, too,” Sam noted. “The reversed cross has been used by Satanists for centuries, but this sigil of sulfur didn’t show up in San Francisco until the sixties.”

“This is exactly why you never get laid,” Dean said, giving his brother an odd look while Emma just shook her head and walked to take a picture of the symbol Sam had noted. Dean turned his own attention back to the wall and symbol he was in front of. “Hey, what about this one? You seen this one before?” Sam and Emma walked over to join him, Emma again straight on with the pictures.

“No,” Sam answered to Dean’s question.

“I have. Somewhere,” Dean said as Sam moved up closer, running his finger along the symbol Dean had pointed out.

“It’s paint,” he said, seeing it leave a mark against his skin. “Seems pretty fresh, too.”

“I don’t know, Sam,” Emma said. “I mean, I hate to agree with authority figures of any kind, but the cops might be right about this one.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Seam agreed… until they heard a noise coming from the other room.

Moving towards it, they were prepared for whatever monster they might find behind that door. Except when they crashed through it, what stood in front of them was were two scared looking geeks with video equipment and flashlights.

“Cut!” One of them screamed. “Just some humans. What are you guys doing here?”

“What the hell are you doin’ here?” Emma threw back at them.

“Uh, we belong here,” the geek said. “We’re professionals.”

“Professional what?” Dean asked. 

“Paranormal investigators,” the guy said, taking out a bunch of business cards and handing one each to Sam, Dean and Emma. “There ya go. Take a look at that, guys.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kiddin’ me,” Dean said as they all read through the cards.

“Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler. Hell Hound’s Lair dot com,” Emma read off. “You guys run that website.”

“Yeah,” the guy who had been speaking all along, Ed, said.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re huge fans,” Dean said, scanning round the room himself.

“And, uh, we know who you guys are, too,” Ed said.

“Oh, yeah?” Sam asked, exchanging a nervous look with Dean and Emma. The kind they always got when someone said something like that.

“Amateurs,” Ed continued, Sam, Dean and Emma now physically relaxing. “Lookin’ for ghosts and cheap thrills.”

“Yeah,” the guy who had up to now been quiet, Harry, said. “So, if you guys don’t mind, we’re trying to conduct a serious scientific investigation here.”

“Mmmm, hmmmm,” Ed agreed.

“Yeah? What do you got so far?” Dean asked them.

“Uh, Harry, why don’t you tell ‘em about EMF?” Ed said. With a smile on her face, Emma found the perfect opportunity to play with these two guys. Stepping closer, she smiled there way, really going for the obvious as she began to flirt with them.

“EMF?” she said, her voice level dropping in pitch. That and the smile caused Ed and Harry to gulp noticeably, stumbling to answer her.

“Electromagnetic field,” Harry eventually answered, taking an EMF meter from his bag, which was buzzing. “Spectral entities can cause energy fluctuations that can be read with an EMF detector, like this bad boy right here. Whoa, whoa. That’s 2.8 MG.”

“2.8,” Ed repeated.

“It’s hot in here,” Harry said.

“Wow,” Emma breathed out, continuing to move closer to them. “So, have you guys ever really seen a ghost before, or…?”

“Once,” Ed told her. “We were, uh… we were investigating this old house, and we saw a vase fall right off the table.”

“By itself,” Harry added.

“Well, we didn’t actually see it, but we heard it,” Ed amended, making Dean shake his head in shame for all the real hunters out there. “And something like that, it, uh… it changes you.”

“Yeah. I think I get the picture,” Dean said, moving closer to Sam and Emma with a grin. “We should go… let them get back to work.”

“Yeah, you should,” Harry said.

“Sam? Emma?” Dean called to them, leaving the room with Sam close behind. Emma lagged back a little I the room, turning to the Hell Hound boys and smiling with a coy wave before she left, knowing the whole time that their eyes were still on her.

“We need a girl like her with us,” Harry said once she had left their eyesight.

“Definitely,” Ed agreed.

Outside the room, Emma caught up with Sam and Dean, laughing as she moved up beside Dean, who wrapped his arm round his girlfriend’s shoulders.

“You’re cruel, you know that,” he said to her.

“Yeah, but its fun,” Emma said, emulating his response to her in the car, the trio laughing as they left the house.

@~~>~~~

With the house showing up nothing, Sam, Dean and Emma split up to take the research from two new angles, Emma’s being to spend a little time a the local library. Stepping down the stone steps, she met up with Sam and Dean as they headed her way, the three now walking together to the car.

“Hey,” Emma said in greeting.

“Hey,” Dean replied. “What do you got?”

“Well,” Emma began. “I couldn’t find a Mordechai, but I did turn up a Martin Murdoch who lived in that house in the thirties. He did have children, but only two of ‘em, both boys. And there was no record he ever killed anybody. What about you?”

“Well,” Sam began with his and Dean’s side of the research. “Those kids didn’t really give us a clear description of that dead girl, but I did hit up the police station. No matching missing persons… it’s like she never existed.”

“Dude, come on, man,” Dean said as they finally reached the car. “We did our digging, this one’s a bust, all right? For all we know, those Hell Hound boys made up the whole thing.”

“Yeah, all right,” Sam agreed reluctantly.

“So, I say we find ourselves a bar and some beers, and leave the legend to the locals,” Dean said as he slid into the front seat of the car. Most definitely up for that over more research, Emma went to take the seat beside him, but was held back by Sam. She gave him a confused look, but he just held up his hand, telling her to wait. In a minute, she understood why.

The minute Dean turned the key to start the car, it practically exploded with life. The radio bellowed out some kind of fast paced music Dean would never listen to, the windscreen wipers frantically began swishing back and forth, and the whole car practically jumped with the force of it all as the engine kicked in as well. The car wasn’t the only thing that jumped as Dean moved to quickly switch everything off before he got any more stares from the passing public.

Through all this, all Sam and Emma could do was stand there and laugh.

“What the…?” Dean started as he saw Sam slide into the seat beside him and Emma into the back, both still laughing. Sam, knowing he had Dean’s attention, licked his finger, drew a number one in their air, then mouthed the word ‘me’ as he pointed to himself. “That’s all you got? That’s weak. That is Bush-league.”

Again, all Sam and Emma could do was laugh.

@~~>~~~

Another dark night outside the abandoned house that was now the stuff of legends… and another set of teenagers, two girls and a boy, shivering as they stood in a circle.

“This is it,” the guy said. “The point of no return.”

“Why do I have to go in there?” one of the girls asked.

“Because, Jill, you chose dare instead of truth,” the other girl answered. “Which means you either have to go grab a jar from Mordechai’s cellar and bring it back, or…?”

“Or you can make out with me,” the guy finished with a smirk, seemingly liking that idea more.

“I’ll take the homicidal ghost, thanks,” Jill said, snatching the flashlight from him and, after a deep breath to compose herself, going inside the house.

“Would you ever take that dare?” the guy asked once Jill was inside the house.

“Hell, no,” the remaining girl beside him answered.

Inside the house, Jill was taking the dare, cautiously stepping from room to room, jumping at any noise.

“Hello?” she yelled into the empty house as a particularly loud noise grabbed her attention. “Hello? Is anybody there?” But she got no reply, so she continued to make her way to her required destination, the cellar, eager to get out of this place as quick as was humanly possible.

Once inside the cellar, Jill went about her dare, picking up a jar to take out with her. But another noise makes her drop it, the jar shattering and the contents staining the dust coated stone floors. Turning, her mind praying that she is yet again just imagining things, Jill now finds herself face to face with the ghost of Mordechai Murdoch.

She screams and tries to dart past him, but he is too quick for her. He grabs her by the neck, tying a noose round her throat and pulling her body up into the rafters as she continues to scream at the top of her lungs, legs kicking out at anything. But all too soon, the pull of the rope round her neck wins out, her screams stopping and her legs stilling as her body hangs limply in death.

@~~>~~~

Next day, before the trio left town, they decided to drive by the house one more time. And it was a good job they did, because what they found was the police surrounded by police, paramedics and onlookers, an ambulance parked beside a number of police cars while yellow tape was strapped around the area. The abandoned building looked a lot more alive then they had ever seen it.

Getting out of the car to find out what was going on, Sam, Dean and Emma watched as the paramedics carried Jill out of the house in a body bag.

“What happened?” Dean asked one of the onlookers as they stopped beside him.

“Couple of cops say that poor girl hung herself in the house,” he told them.

“Suicide?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. But she was a straight-A student, with a full ride to UT, too. It just don’t make sense,” the guy said as he walked away from the, leaving the trio to ponder what might be going on as they watched that young girl’s body hauled into the back of the ambulance.

“What do you think?” Sam asked the two beside him.

“I think maybe we missed somethin’,” Emma answered him.

@~~>~~~

Later that night, while two sheriffs patrolled the building, Sam, Dean and Emma watched from a hidden spot in the trees.

“I guess the cops don’t want anymore kids screwin’ around in there,” Sam noted.

“Yeah, but we still gotta get in there,” Dean said, while Emma heard sounds behind them, someone whispering.

“I don’t believe it,” Emma groaned as she turned to see where the sound had come from. Sam and Dean turned with her to see Ed and Harry not so stealthily making their way towards the house, the packs of equipment they were carrying not helping at all.

“I got an idea,” Dean said, standing up but still staying hidden as he yelled out into the trees. “Who ya gonna call?”

This got the desired effect as Ed and Harry stumbled to see where the noise had come from, making more noise themselves and revealing where they were to the sheriffs, who went chasing after them, giving Sam, Dean and Emma the chance to sneak into the unprotected house.

Inside, there was still one thing about this place that seemed to be bugging Dean.

“Man, where have I seen that symbol before?” he said, stopping in front of it. “It’s killin’ me!”

“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Sam said, him and Emma leading Dean down into the cellar. Looking around, Dean’s eyes fell on the numerous jars stacked on the shelves.

“Hey, Sam,” he called to his brother. “I dare you to take a swig of this.”

“What the hell would I do that for?” Sam asked, Dean going silent as he thought of an answer.

“I double-dare you,” is what he came up with, making Sam shake his head and Emma laugh.

“You’re just a big kid at heart, aren’t you?” Emma said to him.

“And you love me for it,” Dean replied, pulling a still laughing Emma into a quick kiss.

A noise from the other side of the room grabbed all of their attentions, each pulling out their weapons and standing in front of the source of the sound, an old cabinet in the corner. Counting down, Sam quickly pulled the door open. When he did, several quite large rats scurried out across the floor, making Emma jumped closer to her boyfriend.

“Ugh, I hate rats,” Emma moaned.

“You’d rather it was a ghost?” Sam asked her.

“Yes,” Emma stated, all three of them turning around to find that rats weren’t the only things sharing the cellar with them.

Mordechai had suddenly appeared in front of them, axe raised high ready to bring down for a lethal blow. Sam was the quicker draw however, firing off a couple of shots into him until he dissolved into a cloud of smoke.

“What the hell kind of spirit is immune to rock salt?” Sam complained.

“I don’t know,” Emma called out, eager to just get out of there now. “Come on, come on, come on,” 

First in line to leave, she was also first in line for attack when Mordechai appeared in front of the again, smashing through the shelves before trying to swing at Emma. In defence, Emma held up the rifle in her hand to block the swing, leacving her stood holding him back to stop him from hitting her.

“Go! Get out of here!” Emma called to the boys, the two of them getting past her, Emma only letting go and pushing Mordechai back when she k new they were gone and she could just run as fast as she could.

While all this was going on inside the house, Ed and Harry had managed to evade the cops and creep back into position outside the house.

“Maybe we should just go,” Harry told Ed.

“No,” Ed said firmly. “Would John Edward go? Now, we’ve lost the cops, let’s find our centre, and get some work done, okay?” Harry nodded, agreeing, Ed not noticing if it was a little reluctantly.

“All right,” Ed said, him and Harry turning towards the front door of the house. But before they could get in, Sam, Dean and Emma came running out. Ed and Harry, however, didn’t miss a beat, their cameras up to catch whatever was going on.

“Get that damn thing out of my face!” Dean called as he pushed past the boys. Ed and Harry still managed to hold their cameras straight though. Enough to catch Mordechai as he ran to the door, chasing after Sam, Dean and Emma.

“Sweet Lord… of the Rings, run!” Harry yelled, him and Ed turning to flee, only to be stopped by the two sheriffs from before stood in their way. “But there’s a… with an axe… where’d he go?” Harry stammered as he turned to see that Mordechai had vanished.

“Boys, come on,” one of the sheriffs said, pushing both boys against the hood of the cop car.

@~~>~~~

The next morning, Sam, Dean and Emma were now back in their motel room and back on the case, Sam and Emma sat at the table doing research, while Dean was still going over that symbol he couldn’t get out of his head.

“What the hell is this symbol? It’s buggin’ the hell outta me. This whole damn job is buggin’ me,” Dean continued to ranmt and moan. “I thought the legend said that Mordechai only goes after chicks.”

“He does,” Emma answered, glad Dean was talking about anything but that God damned symbol!

“Right,” Dean said. “Well, then that explains why he went after you and Sam, but why me?”

“Hilarious,” Sam deadpanned at Dean.

“The legend also says he hung himself, but you see those slit wrists?” Emma said. “What’s up with that? And the axe, too.”

“I mean, ghosts are usually pretty strict, right?” Sam continued. “Following the same patterns over and over?”

“But his mood keeps changin’,” Dean summed up.

“Exactly,” Sam said.

“I’m tellin’ you, the way the story goes….” Emma began as she logged onto the Hell Hounds site, something catching her eye. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” Dean asked.

“Someone added a new post into the Hell Hounds’ site. Listen to this,” Emma began reading from the site. “They say Mordechai Murdoch was really a Satanist who chopped up his victims with an axe before slitting his own wrists. Now he’s imprisoned in the house for eternity. Where the hell is this going?”

While Emma had been reading, Dean had still been concentrating on the symbol, and now, something caught his eye as well.

“I don’t know, but I think I might have just figured out where it all started,” Dean said, smirking at Sam and Emma as he jumped off the bed.

@~~>~~~

Where Dean took them was the record store where they had first met Craig, only now, the boy who had been so eager to tell them his story looked like a little kid who had just been told his favourite pet had died.

“Hey, Craig. Remember us?” Emma said as they entered the store, Craig turning to them.

“Guys, I’m really not in the mood to answer anymore of your questions, okay?” Craig said once he saw who it was.

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re just here to buy an album, that’s all,” Emma said as Dean, who had been looking through the albums, picked one out and walked towards Craig with Sam and Emma.

“You know, I couldn’t figure out what that symbol was, and then I realized, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a logo for Blue Oyster Cult,” Dean said, his words making Craig turn to them. “So, tell me, Craig, are you into BOC? Or just scarin’ the hell outta people?” Dean flipped the album over and handed it to Craig, showing him the symbol that had been bugging Dean for so long.

“So,” Dean continued. “Why don’t you tell us about that house without lyin’ through your ass this time.”

“All right,” Craig said, sighing. “Ummm… my cousin, Dana, was on break from TCU, and I guess we were just bored, lookin’ for something to do, so I showed her this abandoned dump I found. We thought it’d be funny if we made it look like it was haunted. So, we painted symbols on the walls, some from some albums, and some from some of Dana’s theology textbooks. And then we found out this guy Murdoch used to live there, so we made up some story to go along with that. So, they told people, who told other people, and then these two guys put it on their stupid website. Everything just took on a life of its own. I mean, I thought it was funny at first, but… now that girl’s dead.” The trio watched as Craig began to show true emotion, his eyes beginning to well up with tears at the thought of what his prank might have brought on.

“It was just a joke, you know,” Craig continued, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I mean… none of it was real, we made the whole thing up, I swear.”

“All right,” Emma said, moving with Sam and Dean to walk away, leaning closer to the brothers so Craig wouldn’t hear her. “If none of it was real, then how the hell do you explain Mordechai?”

@~~>~~~

Back to research at the motel, Emma was sat alone, the brother’s separated, Sam in the shower and Dean still out somewhere. The click of an opening door added to the sound of the shower as Dean came back in, something hidden in his hands. Emma watched as he slinked over to Sam’s clothes on the bed, taking out what was hidden, which happened to be a packet of itching powder. Watching Dean empty the contents over Sam’s clothes, Emma opening her mouth to speak, but Dean shushed her. Wrong thing to do.

“Dean’s back,” Emma yelled to Sam through the bathroom door, causing Dean to glare at her, which she just smirked off.

“Hey. Where were you?” Sam asked as he switched off the shower.

“Oh, I went out,” Dean answered.

“So, we think we might have a theory about what’s goin’ on,” Sam yelled.

“Oh, yeah?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Emma continued. “What if Mordechai is a tulpa?”

“A tulpa?” Dean questioned as Sam walked out of the shower, just a towel wrapped round his waist. Dean immediately jumped, hiding the packet.

“Yeah, a Tibetan thought form,” Emma continued.

“Yeah, I know what a tulpa is,” Dean shot back. “Hey, why don’t you get dressed? We’ll go grab somethin’ to eat.”

Dean quickly took Sam’s place, slipping past him into the bathroom, leaving Emma alone with him in the room. The amount of stuffy little motel rooms they had shared, none of them were any longer all that bothered about being half naked in front of the other’s. Any self conscious attitudes left in the situation they were in.

Grabbing his clothes from the bed, Sam looked over at Emma sat on the little table, only to have her turn away from him, trying to hide the smirk on her face.

@~~>~~~

All three dressed and out, Sam, Dean and Emma sat at a table in the nearby restaurant, Sam constantly shifting and scratching in his clothes while Dean and Emma tried to hold back their laughter.

“Hey, what’s your problem?” Dean asked his brother with a smirk.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” Sam said as they got out all of their usually research equipment.

“Yeah?” Dean said before turning to Emma. “All right, so, keep goin’, what about these tulpas?”

“Okay,” Emma began. “So there was this incident in Tibet in 1915. A group of monks visualized a golem in their heads. They meditate on it so hard, they bring the thing to life out of thin air.”

“So?” Dean questioned.

“That was twenty monks,” Emma clarified. “Imagine what ten thousand web surfers could do. I mean, Craig starts a story about Mordechai, and it spreads, goes online. Now there are countless people all believing in the bastard.”

“Okay, wait a second,” Dean said. “You’re trying to tell me that just because people believe in Mordechai, he’s real?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” Sam said, still shifting uncomfortably.

“People believe in Santa Claus. How come I’m not gettin’ hooked up every Christmas?” Dean said.

“‘Cause you’re a bad person. And because of this,” Emma said, turning the computer she had been tapping at to show them a picture taken from the house of one of the symbols on the wall. “That’s a Tibetan spirit sigil on the wall of the house. Craig said they were painting symbols from a theology textbook. I bet you they painted this not even knowing what it was. Now, that sigil has been used for centuries, concentrating meditative thoughts like a magnifying glass. So, people are on the Hell Hounds’ website, starin’ at the symbol, thinkin’ about Mordechai…. I mean, I don’t know. But it might be enough to bring a tulpa to life.”

“It would explain why he keeps changin’,” Dean commented.

“Right,” Sam added. “As the legend changes, people think different things, so Mordechai himself changes, like a game of telephone. That would also explain why the rock salt didn’t work.”

“Yeah, ‘cause he’s not a traditional spirit, per se,” Dean surmised. “Okay, so, uh, why don’t we just get this spirit sigil thingy off the wall and off the website?”

“Well, it’s not that simple,” Emma said. “You see, once tulpas are created, they take on a life of their own.”

“Great,” Dean groaned. “All right, so, if he really is a thought form, how the hell are we supposed to kill an idea?”

“Well, it’s not gonna be easy with these guys helping us. Check out their homepage,” Emma said, turning the computer to show them the Hell Hounds home page, which now contained a clip of the video they had captured last night. “Since they posted the video, the number of hits have quadrupled in the last day alone.”

“Huh. I got an idea,” Dean said, getting to his feet. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Sam asked as, after Emma had shut the laptop, he gathered the rest of the things.

“I gotta find a copy store,” Dean said, beginning to leave the restaurant as Emma followed behind him.

“Man, I think I’m allergic to our soap or somethin’,” Sam mumbled to himself. The fact that Dean or Emma could no longer contain their laughter as they left the restaurant was a big clue to Sam as why he had spent the day shifting and scratching.

“You did this?” he called to them, just getting another laugh in return. “You’re a friggin’ jerk.”

“Oh, yeah!” Dean answered back as Sam finally followed the pair out.

@~~>~~~

At Hell Hounds HQ, known to others as the local trailer park, Ed and Harry were inside their own trailer, working on their website and discussing last night.

“No, no, no,” Harry stood his ground. “No, forget it. Forget it, I’m not going back in there again.”

“Harry, look at me. Right here, okay?” Ed said, not going on until Harry was indeed looking at him. “You are a ghost hunter, okay?”

“I know, but, Ed” Harry said. “I’ve never actually seen a real ghost before, like a real ghost, it’s like an apparition!”

“This stuff right here, this is our ticket to the big time,” Ed told him. “Fame, money, sex. With girls, okay? Be brave. Okay, WWBD. What would Buffy do? Huh?”

“What would Buffy do?” Harry repeated, for a moment strong again, but suddenly going back to cautious in a split second. “I don't know, but, Ed, she’s stronger than me.”

“It’s okay,” Ed said, that statement questioned as they both jumped at a loud knocking on their trailer door.

“Who is it?” Harry muttered to Ed.

“Come on out here, guys,” Dean’s voice echoed through to them. “We hear you in there.”

“It’s them,” Ed grumbled, opening the door to Sam, Dean and Emma on the other side.

“Oh, look at that,” Emma said, peering inside the trailer. “Action figures in their original packaging. What a shocker.”

“Guys, we need to talk,” Sam said, getting straight to the point.

“Yeah, um, sorry, guys,” Ed said. “We’re, uh… we’re a little bit busy right now.”

“Okay, well, we’ll make it quick,” Emma said. “We need you to shut down your website.”

“Man,” Ed said with a laugh, turning to Harry. “You know, these guys get us busted last night, we spend the night in a holding cell.”

“I had to pee in that cell urinal in front of people,” Harry added. “And I get stage fright.”

“Why should we trust you guys?” Ed asked.

“Look, guys, we all know what we saw last night,” Sam said, trying to appeal to them. “What’s in the house. But now, thanks to your website, there are thousands of people hearin’ about Mordechai.”

“That’s right,” Dean continued. “Which means people are gonna keep showin’ up at the Hell House, runnin’ into him in person… somebody could get hurt.”

“Ed, maybe he’s got a point,” Harry said, showing who, out of the two, was the weaker of them.

“No, no,” Ed said emphatically.

“Nope,” Harry agreed, trying to act strong.

“Okay, we have an obligation to our fans, to the truth,” Ed told them.

“Well, I have an obligation to kick both your little asses right now….” Dean threatened, taking a step closer to the pair.

“Dean, Dean, hey, hey,” Emma said, pulling him back. “Forget it, all right? These guys… I could probably bitch-slap them both. I could probably even tell ‘em that thing about Mordechai….” At this point, Ed and Harry became suddenly interested.

“But they’re still not gonna help us,” Emma finished. “So, let’s just go.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Dean said, the trio walking away from them.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ed said, following after them. “What did you say about…? Hold on a second here.”

“Wait, wait,” Harry called from beside him. “Yeah, what thing about Mordechai, you guys?”

“Don’t tell ‘em, Emma,” Dean told her.

“But if they agree to shut their website down….” Emma started.

“They’re not gonna do it. You said so yourself,” Sam backed Dean up.

“No, wait, wait. Don’t listen to him, okay? We’ll do it,” Ed said, Sam, Dean and Emma now stopping and turning to them. “We’ll do it.”

“It’s a secret, Emma,” Sam warned her.

“Look, it is a pretty big deal, all right?” Emma told Ed and Harry. “And it wasn’t easy to dig up. So, only if we have your word that you’ll shut everything down.”

“Totally,” Ed agreed, thinking he had found the weaker link in Emma.

“All right,” Emma said, all three giving in as Dean handed them a piece of paper from his pocket. “It’s a death certificate from the thirties. We got it at the library. Now, according to the coroner, the actual cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“That’s right,” Dean continued. “He didn’t hang or cut himself.”

“He shot himself?” Harry questioned.

“Yup,” Sam said. “With a .45 pistol. To this day, they say he’s terrified of ‘em.”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact,” Emma went on. “They say if you shoot him with a .45, loaded with these special wrought-iron rounds, you could kill the son of a bitch.”

With this information, Ed and Harry smiled, making their way back to their trailer as quick as their feet would carry them. It was obvious they were rushing back to post their newfound information on their site, they weren’t even being sly about it. Sam, Dean and Emma just smiled, each thinking the exact same thing.

‘Worked like a charm!’

@~~>~~~

Choosing to relax until later tonight, Sam, Dean and Emma were sat eating at a booth at the local restaurant. Above them on the wall was your typical small town restaurant decorations, a wooden plague that held a model of a man holding a fish with a string underneath it. A string that if you pulled it, maniacal laughter emitted from the model. And a string Dean kept pulling, much to Sam’s dislike, who kept pulling it to shut it up.

“If you pull that string one more time, I’m gonna kill you,” Sam told him. Testing the waters, Dean pulled the string again, Sam there in an instant to stop it, only to have Dean start laughing in it’s place. And there was no string for Sam to shut him up.

“Come on, man. You need more laughter in your life, you know, you’re way too tense,” Dean told him, but Sam said nothing, merely took a swig of his beer. “They post it yet?” Dean asked Emma, who turned the laptop she had been on towards Dean, him reading off the screen. 

“We have learned from reputable sources that Mordechai Murdoch has a fatal fear of firearms,” Dean read. “All right. How long do we wait?”

“Long enough for the new story to spread and the legend to change,” Emma told him. “I figure by nightfall, iron rounds will work on the sucker.” To this, Sam held up his beer bottle in a cheer, Dean doing the same.

“Sweet,” Dean said, clinking his bottle against Sam’s and taking a swig, Sam trying to hold back his laughter for a reason only now evident to him, though would soon become evident to Dean and Emma.

After taking his swig, Dean went to put his bottle back down, but found that he couldn’t. The bottle wouldn’t move from his hand… almost like it was glued there!

Seeing Dean’s struggle, Sam gave in and began laughing, both Dean and Emma looking up at him.

“You didn’t,” Dean said. For an answer, Sam held up the little tube of superglue he had been holding underneath the table, Emma now laughing along with him as she saw the beer bottle on Dean’s hand as well.

“Oh, I did,” Sam chuckled, Dean just looking shocked. Suddenly in a better mood, Sam pulled the string on the laughing fisherman, he and Emma laughing along with it.

@~~>~~~

Back at the now dubbed ‘Hell House’ at night, two sheriffs were searching the forest for the origins of a sound that was not mean to be there.

“I’m tellin’ ya, I heard something comin’ from over there,” one of the sheriff’s said, the sound getting louder as they moved. “See? There it is again.”

Turning the corner, the sheriff’s now found the origin of the sound tacked to a nearby tree. The laughing fisherman from the restaurant.

“What is that?” the sheriff remarked. “What the…?”

While they were distracted outside, Sam, Dean and Emma had managed to make their way inside, hoping to finish the job tonight.

“I barely have any skin left on my palm,” Dean moaned as they searched the rooms with flashlights and guns drawn.

“I’m not touchin’ that line with a ten-foot pole,” Sam said, glancing over at Dean’s girlfriend, who just gave him a look while Dean shone his flashlight in Sam’s face as they made their way to the door leading down in to the cellar.

“So, you think old Mordechai’s home?” Emma asked the boys.

“I don’t know,” Sam answered.

“Me neither,” a voice belonging to someone other than their group answered.

Sam, Dean and Emma quickly turned on alert, their guns now drawn at Ed and Harry, both screaming in fright.

“Whoa, whoa! Hey!” Ed said, hands in the air.

“What are you tryin’ to do, get yourself killed?” Emma groaned at them as she and the boys lowered their guns.

“We’re just tryin’ to get a book and movie deal, okay?” Ed answered. Another noise drew all of their attentions, this one the sound of sharpening knives coming from behind the cellar door. “Oh, crap. Uh, guys, you wanna go open that door for us?”

“Why don’t you?” Dean said, his attention trained on the cellar door.

Seconds later, that attention paid off as Mordechai burst through the cellar door, weapons at the ready. Sam, Dean and Emma were quicker, firing until he dissolved into a cloud of smoke. While Sam, Dean and Emma left the room to look around in case he showed up again, Ed and Harry were left dumbfounded where they were.

“Oh, he’s gone. He’s gone,” Ed muttered.

“Did you get him?” Harry asked.

“Oh, yeah, they got him,” was Ed’s answer.

“No, on camera,” Harry clarified. “Did you get him on camera?”

“Uh, I….” Ed stuttered, grabbing the camera he had to check. Next thing, the camera was destroyed as Mordechai appeared and swung an axe at it, disappearing again as Harry jumped back in fright and Sam, Dean and Emma came back in the room at the commotion.

“Hey. Didn’t you guys post that BS story we gave you?” Emma asked them.

“Of course we did,” Ed answered.

“Yeah, but then our server crashed,” Harry clarified.

“So, it didn’t take?” Dean yelled, Ed and Harry merely stuttering. “So, these guns don’t work?”

“Yeah,” Ed answered.

“Great,” Emma groaned, turning to an annoyed looking Sam. “Sam, any ideas?”

“We are getting out of here. Come on, Ed,” Harry said, dragging him away.

Reaching the front door, close to freedom, the two were suddenly hampered in their escapes by the ghost of Mordechai materialising in front of him. With a scream they ran back, again blocked as they came to a locked door. Now they had no escape. A locked door behind them and an axe wielding ghost in front of him.

“Mary and Joseph,” Harry muttered under his breath, terrified.

“The power of Christ compels you,” Ed attempted, getting louder. “The power of Christ compels you!”

“Hey!” Emma called out as she appeared round the corner, Mordechai turning to the newcomer. “Come and get it, you ugly son of a bitch.”

Mordechai did just that, taking a swing at Emma which she ducked to avoid, the axe hitting the wall. But this didn’t stop him. He swung again, this time managing to pin Emma to the wall with the axe handle, choking her.

“Get out of here! Now!” Emma screamed at the two still stood terrified against the wall.

“Run!” Ed reiterated to Harry.

“Yeah, we’re outta here,” Harry agreed, running as fast and as far as they could out of the house.

In the main room, Sam and Dean were on plan B. Which meant dosing the whole house in lighter fluid while Emma continued to be choked in the other room to save the lives of two little nerds who annoyed the hell outta her.

“Guys!” Emma yelled as loud as she could over the axe handle against her throat, loud enough to bring Sam and Dean running.

“Hey!” Dean yelled, dragging Mordechai’s attention to him even if he didn’t let Emma drop. An aerosol can and a lighter as his weapon, Dean made his own personal flame thrower, Mordechai shocked back enough to allow Emma to drop to the floor, breathing heavily.

“Go, go, go! Come on,” Dean said, helping Emma to her feet as the three of them began to run from the house. “Look, if Mordechai can’t leave the house, and we can’t kill him, we improvise.”

The lighter still in his hand, Dean sparked it up and threw it on the floor, watching as the house, made of wood, instantly began to burn. And quick!

Getting out before the house crumbled around them, Sam, Dean and Emma ran and took cover behind the nearby trees, watching the flames rise. Mordechai was a step behind them, only he stopped as the doorway, watching from the inside as the house burnt around him.

“That’s the solution?” Emma said. “Burn the whole damn place to the ground?”

“Well, no one will go in anymore,” Dean justified his reasoning. “I mean, look, Mordechai can’t haunt a house if there’s no house to haunt. It’s fast and dirty, but it works.”

“But, what if the legend changes again, and Mordechai is allowed to leave the house?” Sam questioned.

“Well, then, we’ll just have to come back,” was Dean’s simple answer. For a moment, the group was silent, simply watching the house. That was until Emma lashed out, hitting Dean hard across the shoulder.

“Owww!” Dean cried out, rubbing at the point she had hit. “What was that for?”

“Taking so long to come save me. You too,” she said to a laughing Sam, hitting him in the same place too, immediately stopping his laughter. Again they were silent.

“Kind of makes you wonder,” Sam said after a moment. “Of all the things we’ve hunted, how many existed just ‘cause people believed in ‘em?”

Sharing a thoughtful glance, Sam, Dean and Emma turned their attention back to the house, watching as the fire raged, taking the Hell House down with it once and for all.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, Sam, Dean and Emma were waiting as Ed and Harry came out of their trailer, heading to their loaded up car.

“Gentlemen,” Ed said, looking over at Emma as well. “And lady.”

“Hey, guys,” Sam said as they walked with them.

“Should we tell ‘em?” Harry asked Ed.

“Oh, you might as well,” Ed told him. “You know they’re just gonna read about it in the trades.”

“So,” Harry began. “This morning, we got a phone call from a very important Hollywood producer.”

“Oh, yeah? Wrong number?” Emma said with a smirk.

“No, smartass,” Ed retorted. “He read all about the Hell House on our website and wants to option the motion picture rights, maybe even have us write it.”

“And create the RPG,” Harry added.

“The what?” Dean asked.

“Role-playing game,” Harry told him.

“It’s a little lingo for ya,” Ed continued. “Any who, uh, excuse us, we’re off to La-La Land.”

“Well, congratulations, guys,” Sam said. “That sounds really great.”

“Yeah, that’s awesome,” Dean added.

“Best of luck to ya,” Emma contributed.

“Oh, yeah, luck,” Ed laughed. “It’s got nothin’ to do with it. It’s about talent, you know? Sheer, unabashed, talent. Later.” Slipping into the car, Ed and Harry paused to turn round to Sam. Dean and Emma, shooting them the peace sign.

“See you around,” Ed said as they drove away. Sam, Dean and Emma made their own way to their car, laughing.

“Wow,” Dean remarked.

“I have a confession to make,” Emma told them.

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“I was the one who called them and told ‘em I was a producer,” Emma said as they reached the car, the three of them laughing.

“Well, I’m the one who put the dead fish in their backseat,” Dean said, the three again laughing for the poor little nerds on their way to an imaginary meeting smelling like a sewer.

“Truce?” Sam asked Dean, referring to their little prank war.

“Yeah, truce,” he grinned, Sam sighing. “At least for the next hundred miles.”

“Oh, thank God,” Emma said with a smile, grabbing the boys attention.

“What?” they both asked.

“Oh, come on boys,” Emma said. “This was getting childish, like it always does with you two. I’m just glad you’re finished.”

With a smirk, Sam and Dean exchanged a look, and an idea, advancing on Emma from either side.

“See,” Dean began. “Now as I recall, we weren’t the only ones who were big on the pranks, right Sam.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “If I remember right, you were the one who taught us the art of the prankster.”

“Come on guys,” Emma said, backing up nervously. “What are you doing?”

“And these last days,” Dean continued like she hadn’t spoke. “It’s been me and Sam that have been getting the brunt of all this.”

“And we just don’t thinks that’s right at all,” Sam added.

“Ok, guys, don’t you even….” Emma began, trying to run, only to be blocked by Sam, who ran her right into Dean’s arms, her boyfriend grabbing her waist from behind and hauling the girl, kicking and screaming over his shoulder. Simply laughing at her antics, the boys walked their female companion to their chosen destination.

“What in the hell are you two doing,” Emma yelled. “Put me down right now!”

“I will… in a minute,” Dean laughed. Squirming in his arms, Emma was able to see just where Dean was carrying her to.

“Oh, you better not be thinking of doing what I think you are,” Emma told the two of them, struggling even more.

“That depends,” Sam said. “How long has it been since you went swimming, Emma?”

“Don’t you even think about it!” Emma said, her struggling doing nothing as Dean just held on tight. “Put me down this instant!”

“Your wish is my command,” Dean said, and put her down he did… dropping her right over the dock and into the lake. Sam and Dean laughed as they watched Emma sink beneath the surface of the water, coming up for air and looking like a drowned rat, water plastered to her face and her wet clothes sticking to her body.

“Right, that’s it,” Emma said with a smirk, diving back under the water and making sure to kick out as Sam and Dean as she did. Sam and Dean just continued to laugh… that was until she didn’t come back up. Leaning further over toward the edge of the dock to look for her, their weight was unbalanced when a pair of hands pushed the loose plank underneath them, sending the two sailing forward head first into the water.

Emma was the first to come up for air, smiling as she watched Sam and Dean rise as well, looking as wet and bedraggled as she did.

“So nice of you guys to join me,” Emma said to them, smiling. Dean just smirked back at her, splashing water up into her already soaked face.

And that was where they stayed for the moment, treading water in the murky lake, flicking water back and two at each other. One of those moments were their lives as hunters were forgotten for one moment of fun.


	18. Something Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Sam, Dean and Emma investigate a small town in Wisconsin where children are falling into comas for no apparent reason. The trio discover that a witch is creeping into the bedrooms of the children and stealing their ‘life force’. While battling the witch, Dean recalls a past mistake that almost cost Sam his life at the hands of the very same witch, an event which has fuelled Dean's protectiveness over Sam and his blind obedience to his father.

Small town customs: close knit families, tight communities, and religious connotations. And Fitchburg, Wisconsin is just another example of this. Young Bethany Tarnower is knelt by her bed in pray, her father, Miles, watching over her from the doorway.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Bethany begins softly. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. My angels watch me through the night, and keep me safe ‘til morning light. Amen.”

“Amen,” Miles repeats as his daughter climbs into her bed, moving closer to tuck her in.

“ ‘Night, monkeypuss,” he mutters, kissing her on the forehead.

“Daddy, is Mommy coming home?” the girl asks innocently.

“No, honey,” Miles answers, looking from the happy, smiling photo of him, his wife and their two young girls, to the empty bed across the other side of the room. “She’s spending the night at the hospital with your sister. Hey, you sleep tight now.”

Waiting until his daughter is safely tucked beneath the covers, Miles shuts off the light and closes the bedroom door behind him, leaving his daughter to sleep peacefully. But no matter how she tries, the young girl can’t seem to get to sleep.

Soon, her attempts were interrupted by a soft tapping against the window, the wind blowing the branches of a nearby tree against them. Slipping from the covers, Bethany rushes to the window, closing the curtains and running back across the room to bury herself beneath the covers, her heart gripped with a young girls fear at the strange sounds of the night.

That fear, however, is soon justified as something, this time not the tree put a bony looking hand, edges closer to the window, silhouetted behind the curtain as it unlocks the latch, allowing the owner of the hand to slip into the young girl’s room. Even through the covers over her head, Bethany can see the shape of a tall figure sweeping into her room, closer to her bed. That bony hand that had unlatched the window now stretches forward, pulling the covers from Bethany to reveal to her a robed figure, it’s face thankfully hidden behind the rolls of a black hood. Sucking in a deep breath, air isn’t all the creature takes it, a white light flowing from Bethany to it as the young girls lets out a loud scream.

@~~>~~~

With another elusive text message from the boys father, Sam, Dean and Emma are cruising down the back country roads in the Impala, Emma just listening as Sam and Dean continue what has now been a five mile long argument about the reasons behind taking this case of theirs.

“Yeah, you probably missed somethin’, that’s why,” Dean yells at his brother, who is still trying to tell him that there is no reason for them to be driving all the way to Wisconsin.

“Dude, I ran LexisNexis, local police reports, newspapers,” Sam explains to his brother. “I couldn’t find a single red flag. Are you sure you got the coordinates right?”

“Yeah, I double-checked,” Dean told him. “It’s Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Look, Dad wouldn’t have sent us coordinates if it wasn’t important, Sammy.”

“Well, I’m tellin’ you, I looked, and all I could find was a big, steaming pile of nothin’,” Sam argues back. “If Dad’s sending us hunting for something, I don’t know what.”

“Well, maybe he’s gonna meet us there,” Dean mutters.

“Yeah, ‘cause he’s been so easy to find up to this point,” Emma finally puts in her point of view.

“You’re a real smartass, you know that?” Dean mutters back at her, catching her eyes in the rear view mirror as she longes in the back seat. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s somethin’ in Fitchburg worth killin’.”

“Yeah? What makes you so sure?” Emma asks.

“Well, because I’m the oldest, which means I’m always right,” Dean answered with a smirk.

“No, it doesn’t,” Emma says.

“Yeah, it totally does,” Dean replies.

This argument goes on, neither backing down and Sam just listening to the pair with a smile, as always. Whenever Sam starts to wonder why Emma is still travelling with them, why she still sticks by his arrogant ass of a big brother, he just remembers these little moments and realises something. Those two were too alike not to end up falling madly in love with each other… even if they don’t always show it that way.

@~~>~~~

Dean having gotten his way, as per usual, Sam and Emma were now leaning against the car, which was parked on a street in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, waiting for Dean to come out of the café. When he did, he came about bearing a cup of coffee for each of them, and information.

“Well,” Dean began, handing the coffee out. “The waitress thinks that the local freemasons are up to somethin’ sneaky, but, uh, other than that, nobody’s heard about anything weird goin’ on.”

“Sugar?” Emma asked Dean, motioning to the coffee in her hand.

“Yes, sweetie?” Dean replied, smirking at her

“Very funny,” Emma laughed. “Is there sugar in the coffee?”

“As always,” Dean said, moving beside Emma to wrap his arm round her shoulders and kiss the top of her head.

“You got the time?” Sam asked, interrupting the two.

“Ten after four,” Dean checked hi watch. “Why?”

“What’s wrong with this picture?” Sam asked the other two, motioning to the park they were stood by. The park that was practically deserted, just one solitary child, her mother watching nearby.

“School’s out, isn’t it?” Dean questioned.

“Yeah. So, where is everybody?” Emma said, bringing across Sam’s point. “This place should be crawlin’ with kids right now.”

When you need answers, you take what you can get. Which meant Dean and Emma walking casually past the playground and up to the only mother there.

“It sure is quiet out here,” Dean said in a conversational manner to the woman.

“Yeah, it’s a shame,” the woman replied.

“Why is that?” Emma asked, getting into the conversation.

“You know, kids getting sick. It’s a terrible thing,” she told them.

“How many?” Emma asked.

“Just five or six, but serious,” the woman said. “Hospital serious. A lot of parents are getting pretty anxious. They think it’s catching.”

“Hmm,” Dean said, him and Emma turning to watch the lone kid playing on the monkey bars. The lucky kid.

@~~>~~~

A town full of kids who are seriously sick and hospitalised, the first place you wanna look for answers is the Children’s Ward. Meaning Sam, Dean and Emma, now dressed in their important looking suits, wandered through the hospital doors on their way there.

“Dude, dude, I am not using this ID,” Sam muttered to his brother.

“Why not?” Dean asked.

“Because it says ‘bikini inspector’ on it,” Sam said through gritted teeth, Dean and Emma’s reply to simply laugh.

“Don’t worry, she won’t look that close,” Emma told him. “Hell, she won’t even ask to see it. It’s all about confidence, Sam.” With that, she turned him and pushed him forward, into the reception desk and the smiling receptionist.

“Hi,” Sam said, fake smile plastered across his lips. “I’m Dr. Jerry Kaplan, Centre for Disease Control.”

“Can I see some ID?” she asked, causing Sam to glare at the couple behind him who were trying their hardest not to laugh.

“Yeah, of course,” Sam said, taking out the ID and flashing it to her. Long enough for her to see his name, but quick enough that she wouldn’t see what else the ID said. “Now, could you direct me to the pediatrics ward, please?”

“Okay, just go down that hall, turn left, and up the stairs,” she told them. With another smile, Sam turned away from her and back to Dean and Emma, the glare back.

“See? I told you it’d work,” Emma said with a wide smile.

“Follow me. It’s upstairs,” Sam said, turning and leading them away.

Weaving through hallways and making their way up staircases, Sam, Dean and Emma walked through the hospital corridors, passing room after room. One room, however, caught Dean’s attention, stopping in his tracks.

The door to this room was open, and inside was your typical long stay room. Bed, dressers, chairs, the whole lot. And the occupant was sat in one of those chairs. She was an old woman, hair turned white a long time ago and eyes holding an icy stare. Cold grey eyes that had, when he had stopped, locked their sights on Dean before turning back to whatever she was staring at on the far side wall. It wasn’t, however, the occupant of the room that had drawn Dean’s attention, but the inverted cross nailed to her back wall.

“Dean,” Emma’s voice spoke close by, knocking Dean out of his trance to look down and see Emma stood at this side, Sam down the hall a little way after they had realised he was no longer walking with them.

Without a word, Emma simply took his hand, leading him on down the corridor and away from the room, the woman, and the devil’s cross.

@~~>~~~

Transversing their way through more corridors, Sam, Dean and Emma finally found themselves in the Children’s Ward, talking with the doctor on duty, Dr Hydecker.

“Well, thanks for seein’ us, Dr. Hydecker,” Dean told the man.

“Oh, I’m glad you guys are here,” he replied. “I was just about to call the CDC myself. How’d you find out, anyway?”

“Oh, some GP, I forget his name,” Dean brushed off the subject. “He called Atlanta, and, uh, must have beat you to the punch.”

“So, you say you got six cases so far?” Sam said, pulling them back on topic.

“Yeah, in five weeks,” Dr Hydecker said, the group of four stopping outside a locked room, looking in through the window at a young boy in a coma. “At first, we thought it was garden-variety bacterial pneumonia, not that newsworthy. But now….”

“Now what?” Sam asked.

“The kids aren’t responding to antibiotics,” Dr Hydecker told them with a dejected sigh. “Their white cell counts keep goin’ down. Their immune systems just aren’t doin’ their job. It’s like their bodies are wearing out.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Hydecker,” a nurse interrupted as she walked up to them, handing Dr Hydecker a clipboard of information.

“You ever see anything like this before?” Emma asked him.

“Never this severe,” Dr Hydecker said as he signed the paperwork the nurse had given him.

“The way it spreads… that’s a new one for me,” the nurse chimed in.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked her.

“It works its way through families, but only the children,” she told them. “One sibling after another.”

“Do you mind if we interview a few of the kids?” Dean asked.

“They’re not conscious,” the nurse said simply.

“None of them?” Sam asked.

“No,” the nurse said.

“Can we, uh… can we talk to the parents?” Emma asked.

“If you think it’ll help,” Dr Hydecker replied.

“Yeah,” Emma told him with her sweetest smile. “Who was your most recent admission?”

@~~>~~~

As the trio had expected, the latest admission meant that the child’s parents were still there. In this case, Miles Tarnower, who they found in sitting in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs in the hallway.

“I should get back to my girls,” Miles said after a number of questions from Sam, Dean and Emma.

“We understand that, and we really appreciate you talkin’ to us,” Sam said sincerely. “Now, you say Mary’s the oldest?”

“Thirteen,” Miles said in answer.

“Okay,” Sam said. “And she came down with it first, right? And then….”

“Bethany the next night,” Miles told them.

“Within twenty-four hours?” Emma asked to clarify.

“I guess,” Miles said, pausing slightly. “Look, I already went through all this with the doctor.”

“All right, now, just a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” Dean said, like any doctor not giving him the chance to say he did. “How do you think they caught pneumonia? Were they out in the cold, anything like that?”

“No, we think it was an open window,” Miles told them.

“Both times?” Dean asked.

“The first time, I don’t really remember,” Miles said. “But the second time, for sure. I know I closed it before I put Bethany to bed.”

“So, you think she opened it?” Emma asked.

“It’s a second-story window with a ledge. No one else could have,” Miles told them.

This was the last question the trio decided they needed. Leaving Miles Tarnower to go see to his children, Sam, Dean and Emma moved to a separate corridor, away from all the doctors and nurses in earshot.

“You know, this might not be anything supernatural,” Sam said to them. “It might just be pneumonia.”

“Maybe. Or maybe somethin’ opened that window. I don’t know, man,” Dean said. “Look, Dad sent us down here for a reason. I think we might be barkin’ up the right tree.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Emma told the brothers.

“What?” Dean asked her.

“That guy we just talked to? I’m bettin’ it’ll be a while before he goes home,” Emma said with a smile. Sam and Dean returned the smile, the three heading out of the hospital.

@~~>~~~

Searching round the thankfully empty house for more clues, Sam, Dean and Emma were in the bedroom the two young girl’s shared, a number of bleeping devices helping them… not very much!

“You got anything over there?” Sam asked from his side of the room.

“No, nothin’,” Dean answered.

“Yeah, me neither,” Emma answered as well as she walked towards the window, where the answered needed changing as she noticed something on the window ledge. “Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?” Dean said as Emma opened the window.

“You were right. It’s not pneumonia,” she told them as they stepped up behind her, looking at what she was seeing. The white paint of the ledge was marked with a long, black handprint.

“It’s rotted,” Sam said, staring intensely at the wood. “What the hell leaves a handprint like that?”

Dean, for his part, remained perfectly silent, thinking back to the last time he had seen a handprint just like that.

@~~>~~~

It was back when Dean was young and still somewhat innocent. His mother had been killed by the demon a few years ago, and ever since, his dad had been on a mission to kill it and anything else that stood in his path.

As per usual, the group found themselves holed up in some cheap ass motel. While his father moved around the room picking up what he would need for the hunt, Dean looked down at the picture on the table, that of a long black handprint rotted into a healthy piece of white stained wood. Dean, being the oldest, was the one John depended on what he was away, the only brother who knew the truth about where their father went when he left their room.

“All right,” John said, entering the room with rifle at the ready. “You know the drill, Dean. If anybody calls, you don’t pick up. If it’s me, I’ll ring once and then call back. You got that?”

“Mm hmm,” Dean replied. “Don’t answer the phone unless it rings once first.”

“Come on, dude, look alive,” John told him. “This stuff’s important.”

“I know, it’s just….” Dean began. “We’ve gone over it, like, a million times, and you know I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not. But it only takes one mistake, you got that?” John asked, Dean answering with a nod. “All right, if I’m not back Sunday night?”

“Call Pastor Jim,” Dean spieled off.

“Lock the doors and windows, close the shades, and most important….” John began.

“Watch out for Sammy,” Dean said, looking over to where Little Sammy was sat watching the TV, Emma beside him to keep him company. Ever since her parents had been killed, Emma had just had these three guys to depend on, which meant she stuck pretty close by them. Not that Dean was gonna complain. Emma was his best friend, and he liked having her around. She really was ok… for a girl! “I know.”

“All right, if somethin’ tries to bust in?” John asked him.

“Shoot first, ask questions later,” Dean replied, John placing his hand against his son’s shoulder.

“That’s my man,” he said with a smile as he left the room.

Working on automatic, the minute his dad was out of the room, Dean shut the door behind him and locked it. Turning back into the room, Dean just stood at the door, watching Sam and Emma as they watched TV. When his dad was good, this was his important job, look after Sammy and Emma. Something he planned on doing well for as long as was needed.

@~~>~~~

Back in the Tarnower’s daughter’s room, Dean’s eyes were still transfixed on the handprint on the window, Sam and Emma watching him.

“I know why Dad sent us here. He’s faced this thing before,” Dean said, Sam and Emma just looking more confused. “He wants us to finish the job.”

@~~>~~~

After Dean had tried his best to explain just what he could remember about these creatures, he, Sam and Emma had made their way to the nearest motel for the night.

“So, what the hell is a shtriga?” Emma asked him again.

“It’s kind of like a witch, I think. I don’t know much about ‘em,” Dean said, pulling a few items from the trunk.

“Well, I’ve never heard of it,” Sam said. “And it’s not in Dad’s journal.”

“Dad hunted one in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin about sixteen, seventeen years ago,” Dean said, looking between the two in front of him. “You two were there, you don’t remember?”

“No,” Sam said simply.

“No offence, but I don’t remember all that much of my childhood with you,” Emma said with a guilty smile. “I think I block it out or something.”

“Yeah,” Dean continued after Emma’s remark. “I guess he caught wind that the thing’s in Fitchburg now and kicked us the coordinates.”

“So, wait, this….” Sam began, struggling for the name.

“Shtriga,” Dean helped him out.

“Right,” Sam continued. “You think it’s the same one Dad hunted before?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean said, slamming the trunk as they headed to the motel reception.

“But if John went after it, why is it still breathing air?” Emma questioned.

“ ‘Cause it got away,” Dean answered simply.

“Got away?” Emma said, knowing John just as well as they did and knowing he didn’t exactly let things ‘get away’ from him.

“Yeah, it happens,” Dean said.

“Not very often,” Sam added.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Dean grated out, getting kinda sick of this discussion already. “I mean, maybe Dad didn’t have his Wheaties that morning.”

“What else do you remember?” Sam asked his brother.

“Nothin’, I was a kid, all right?” Dean said, storming off into the reception to get away. Inside, he walked to the desk and rang the bell, a young boy coming out from the back.

“King or two queens?” he asked in a bored tone.

“Two queens,” Dean replied. Gazing past him and out to the car, the boy only noticed Sam, Emma hidden with her head buried in the trunk.

“Yeah, I bet,” he muttered under his breath.

“What’d you say?” Dean said, the muttering not hiding what the boy had said.

“Nice car,” he said loader, smiling up at Dean. Before Dean could say anything else to the kid, his mother appeared behind him, smiling at their customer and greeting him

“Checking in?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Dean answered, and the mother turned to her son.

“Do me a favor, go get your brother some dinner,” she told him.

“I’m helpin’ a guest,” he said, motioning to Dean. His mother just glared at him as she walked behind the desk. The boy gave in, nodding at Dean with a smirk. “Two queens.”

“Funny kid,” Dean said once he had moved into the back room.

“Oh, yeah, he thinks so,” his mother said. “Will that be cash or credit?”

“You take MasterCard?” Dean asked, getting affirmation from her and pulling a card out of the many. “Perfect. Here ya go.”

Taking the card from Dean, the woman pushed a notepad in Dean’s direction for him to sign while she worked on checking him in. Glancing up from the notepad, Dean’s eyes fell into the back room, where the ‘funny’ kid was taking car of his little brother, pouring him a glass of milk with his tea. A scene that was all too familiar to Dean.

@~~>~~~

Back in that same hotel room with their dad out after the shtriga, Dean was left to look after Sam all on his own… Emma helping a little, of course.

“When’s Dad gonna get back?” Sam asked over tea as Dean poured him a glass of milk.

“Tomorrow,” Emma answered.

“When?” Sam wanted clarification as Dean took the Spaghetti O’s from the heat and poured them into a bowl in front of Sam.

“I don’t know,” Emma continued. “He usually comes in late, though.”

“Now, eat your dinner,” Dean told him.

“I’m sick of Scabetti O’s,” Sam moaned.

“Well, you’re the one who wanted ‘em,” Dean grumbled back.

“I want Lucky Charms,” Sam said.

“There’s no more Lucky Charms,” Dean said immediately.

“I saw the box,” Sam said.

“Okay,” Dean sighed. “Maybe there is, but there’s only enough left for one bowl, and I haven’t had any yet.”

Sam just looked at him with those sad, puppy dog eyes in a way he had the ability to do since birth. Sighing louder this time, Dean gives in, resting his head against the table and waving his hand for Emma to help him. Rolling her eyes and sighing herself, Emma got up, taking Sam’s bowl of Spaghetti O’s and dumping them in the garbage before grabbing a new bowl and the box of Lucky Charms, placing them in front of him as she sits at the table beside him again. Immediately, Sam dug his hand into the box, pulling out the prize and thrusting it towards his big brother.

“Do you want the prize?” he asked him sweetly.

@~~>~~~

“Sir?” the hotel owners voice broke into his mind, knocking him out of his thoughts and back to present day to see her holding out his card for him and another sign in form.

“Thanks,” Dean said, beginning on the other form.

@~~>~~~

Once they were all signed in, the research session had begun, Sam sat on the bed with his laptop.

“Well, you were right,” Sam said into the room. “It wasn’t very easy to find, but you were right. A shtriga is a kind of witch. They’re Albanian, but legends about ‘em date back to ancient Rome. They feed off of spiritus vitae.”

“Spiri-what?” Dean questioned.

“Vitae,” Emma repeated, not even looking at Sam’s computer screen. “It’s Latin, it translates to ‘breath of life’. Kind of like your life force or essence.”

“Didn’t the doctor say the kids’ bodies were wearin’ out?” Dean calculated out loud.

“It’s a thought,” Emma said, on the same wavelength as her boyfriend. “You know, she takes your vitality, maybe your immunity goes to hell, pneumonia takes hold.”

“Anyway,” Sam continued reading from his screen. “Shtrigas can feed off anyone, but they prefer….”

“Children,” Dean finished.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Probably because they have stronger life force. And get this, shtrigas are invulnerable to all weapons devised by God and man.”

“No. That’s not right,” Dean said. “She’s vulnerable when she feeds.”

“What?” Sam questioned.

“If you catch her when she’s eating, you can blast her with consecrated wrought irons,” Dean explained. “Buckshots, or rounds, I think.”

“How do you know that?” Emma asked him.

“Dad told me,” Dean answered simply. “I remember.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “So, uh, anything else Dad might have mentioned?”

“No. That’s it,” Dean said, not keeping eye contact with them. That is however, until he can feel their eyes still boring into him. “What?”

“Nothin’,” Sam and Emma said together, sharing a look. Both knew Dean well enough to know that what he had told them wasn’t exactly the full story they could get out of him.

“Okay,” Sam continued, getting them back on topic. “So, assuming we can kill it when it eats, we still gotta find the thing first, which ain’t gonna be a cakewalk. Shtrigas take on a human disguise when they’re not hunting.”

“What kind of human disguise?” Dean asked.

“Historically, something innocuous,” Sam answered. “It could be anything. But it’s usually a feeble old woman, which may be how the whole witches-as-old-crones legend got started.”

“Hang on,” Dean said, sudden determination on his face as he pulled a map from his bag. “Check this out.” Sam and Emma moved closer to him, looking over his shoulder at the map he had spread out, little red markers in certain places.

“I marked down all the addresses of the victims. Now, these are the houses that have been hit so far, and dead centre?”

“The hospital,” Emma noticed.

“The hospital,” Dean repeated. “When we were there, I saw a patient, an old woman.”

“An old person, huh?” Emma said with a smirk. “In the hospital? Whew. Better call the coast guard.”

“Well, listen, smartass, she had an inverted cross hangin’ on her wall,” Dean told her, Emma smirk dropping instantly. Just maybe Dean was right.

@~~>~~~

With their new start off destination, Sam, Dean and Emma quietly walked through the hospital halls, avoiding any contact with doctors or nurses. Which is why they pressed themselves tight against an opposite wall when they heard footsteps approaching.

“Good night, Dr. Hydecker,” the nurse from that morning called out.

“See you tomorrow, Betty,” Dr Hydecker replied.

“Try to get some sleep,” Betty finished, her and Dr Hydecker taking different hallways out the hospital, and thankfully in the opposite direction to where Sam, Dean and Emma were hiding.

Continuing through the maze of halls, Sam, Dean and Emma again found themselves outside the old woman’s hospital room, her door closed. Before anything, Dean took out his gun, earning himself a confused look from Emma. He merely shrugged as Sam opened the door, Dean heading in in front of them. Copying Dean’s actions, Sam and Emma also drew their own guns as they followed him in… just in case he was right about all this.

Stepping as quietly as possibly, the group moved closer to the old woman, watching her intently as she sat perfectly still in her chair. Dean, the first one in the room, was closer to her, leaning down over her.

“Who the hell are you?!” the woman suddenly called out, scaring the crap outta Dean, who leapt back into the cabinet behind him. Sam and Emma also jumped in their shock, lowering their guns.

“Who’s there?” the woman asked again as Emma moved to turn on the lights. “You tryin’ to steal my stuff?! They’re always stealin’ around here.”

“No, ma’am, we’re maintenance,” Sam said as Dean tried to control his breathing. “We’re sorry, we thought you were sleepin’.”

“Oh, nonsense. I was sleepin’ with my peepers open!” the old woman laughed. “And fix that crucifix, would ya? I’ve asked four damn times already.”

Turning his head, Dean looked at the inverted cross he had seen the other day. Tapping the edge slightly, it moved, falling down into the right place. Looking over at Sam and Emma, the two just stared at him as he conceded that maybe he might have been wrong about the old woman.

@~~>~~~

While Sam, Dean and Emma had been following what they thought was a lead, the shtriga had been elsewhere that night, picking out its next victim.

Stood outside the children’s window, it stretched its long bony hand out to the window latch, nimble fingers quickly unlocking the window to Michael and Asher’s room, the two kids who lived at the motel.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, Sam, Dean and Emma pulled the car back up the motel after a night of useless field work. Emma, however, had not found the night to be a total waste. She had got some amusement out of it.

As the trio stepped out of the car, Dean just glared at his girlfriend, who was laughing hysterically and had been ever since they left the hospital.

“ ‘I was sleepin’ with my peepers open’?” she mumbled through her laughter, still going on about what had happened in the hospital.

“I almost smoked that old gal, I swear,” Dean said, getting aggravated as Emma just continued laughing. “It’s not funny.”

“Oh, man, you should’ve seen your face, Dean,” Emma said, calming slightly as she started unlocking their door.

“Yeah, well, laugh it up, babe. We’re back to square one,” Dean told her, turning to see Michael, the kid who had been there on check-in, sitting alone on a nearby bench, looking vacant. “Hang on.” Dean moved away from their motel room, heading over to a crying Michael with Sam and Emma behind him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dean asked the boy as he crouched down to his level.

“My brother’s sick,” Michael answered.

“The little guy?” Dean asked, getting a nod from Michael.

“Pneumonia,” he told them. “He’s in the hospital. It’s my fault.”

“Oh, come on, how?” Dean said.

“I should’ve made sure the window was latched,” Michael began to explain, his voice filled with emotion as Sam, Dean and Emma listening carefully. “He wouldn’t have gotten pneumonia if the window was latched.”

“Listen to me,” Dean said. “I can promise you that this is not your fault, okay?”

“It’s my job to look after him,” Michael said simply. In answer, Dean could only nod, thinking about his little brother kneeled next to him.

“Michael,” they heard, and watched as Michael’s mother came out with her arms full of pillows and blankets, loading them into the passenger side as Sam, Dean, Emma and Michael walked up to her. “I want you to turn on the ‘No Vacancy’ sign while I’m gone. I’ve got Denise covering room service, so don’t bother with any of the rooms.”

“I’m going with you,” Michael told her bluntly.

“Not now, Michael,” his mother groaned.

“But I gotta see Asher!” Michael continued defiantly.

“Hey, Michael,” Dean said to the boy, butting in to keep the peace. “Hey, I know how you feel, okay? I’m a big brother, too. But you gotta go easy on your mom right now, okay?”

Michael nodded, conceding defeat. As his mother slammed the car door, her mind on other things and in other places, she dropped her purse, the contents luckily staying inside.

“Dammit!” she cried out.

“I got it,” Sam told her, picking the purse up from the floor and handing it to her. “Here.”

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“Hey, listen, you’re in no condition to drive,” Dean told her. “Why don’t you let me give you a lift to the hospital, huh?”

“No, I couldn’t possibly….” She began to argue.

“No, it’s no trouble. I insist,” Dean told her. She thought for a moment, before handing the keys over to Dean.

“Thanks,” she said to him before leaning down to kiss Michael’s forehead. “Be good.” She turned to get inside the car, and Dean turned his attention to Sam and Emma for a moment.

“We’re gonna kill this thing. I want it dead, you hear me?” he practically growled before getting in the car to drive to the hospital.

@~~>~~~

In order to keep Dean happy, let him get his wish, Emma was camped out at the library, her eyes growing weary staring at the blinking computer screen. Hoping she had enough before she went blind, Emma took out her phone, ready to fill Dean in.

“Hey,” he answered after only a couple of rings.

“Hey,” Emma replied. “How’s the kid?”

“He’s not good,” Dean said with a sigh. “Where you at?”

“At the library, tryin’ to find out as much as I can about this shtriga,” she told him.

“Yeah? What do you got?”

“Well, bad news. I started with Fort Douglas, around the time you said your dad was there.”

“And?”

“Same deal. Before that, there was Ogdenville. Before that, North Haverbrook and Brockway. Every fifteen to twenty years, it hits a new town. Dean, this thing is just gettin’ started in Fitchburg. In all these other places, it goes on for months, dozens of kids, before the shtriga finally moves on. Kids just languish in comas, and then they die.”

“How far back does this thing go?”

“I don’t know. The earliest mention I could find was this place called Black River Falls back in the 1890s. Talk about a horror show.”

As Emma spoke, she began to pull up all the information she had found on that earliest case. And on the article was a picture that hadn’t caught her eyes before. It was a black and white image of a group of doctors crowding round a patients bed, one in particular who caught her eye.

“Whoa,” Emma exclaimed down the phone.

“Emma?” Dean questioned her.

“Hold on. I’m lookin’ at a photograph right now of a bunch of doctors standing around a kid’s bed. One of the doctors is Hydecker.”

“And?”

“And this picture was taken in 1893.”

The weighted silence told Emma Dean was as stunned as she had been when she laid eyes on the picture.

“You sure?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Emma told him. “Yeah, absolutely.”

With that, Dean hung up the phone, turning to the scene behind him. He tried his hardest to con troll his anger as he watched Dr Hydecker, his hand placed against young Asher’s forehead as he went about consoling his mother.

“Don’t worry. Your son’s in good hands. I’m gonna take care of him,” he told her before turning round to face Dean. “So, what’s the CDC come up with so far?”

“Well, we’re still workin’ on a few theories,” Dean said, trying to keep his outer exterior calm even though inside he had the incredible urge to rip this guys head off and be done with it here and now. “You’ll know something as soon as we do.”

“Well, nothing’s more important to me than these kids,” he said, wide plastered smile on his face. “Just let me know if I can help.”

“I’ll do that,” Dean muttered to him as he walked away, turning and getting out of the hospital as quick as he could, before he did something half of the Children’s Ward would regret.

@~~>~~~

Now they knew who they were dealing with, it was just a matter of figuring out exactly how to deal with him. Which put Sam, Dean and Emma back in the motel together, in deep discussion.

“We should have thought of this before,” Sam said. “A doctor’s a perfect disguise. You’re trusted, you can control the whole thing.”

“Huh. That son of a bitch,” Dean grumbled, still not calmed entirely from the hospital.

“I’m surprised you didn’t draw on him right there,” Emma said.

“Yeah, well, first of all, I’m not gonna open fire in a freakin’ pediatrics ward,” Dean muttered.

“Good call,” Sam said.

“Second,” Dean continued. “It wouldn’t have done any good because the bastard’s bulletproof unless he’s chowin’ down on somethin’. And third, I wasn’t packin’, which is probably a really good thing ‘cause I probably would’ve just burned a clip in him off of principle alone.”

“Gettin’ wise in your old age, Dean,” Emma smirked at her boyfriend.

“Damn right,” Dean said. “So now I know how we’re gonna get it.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“This shtriga, it works through siblings, right?” Dean reminded them.

“Right,” Sam said.

“Well, last night….” Dean began.

“It went after Asher,” Sam finished.

“So I’m thinkin’ tonight, it’s probably gonna come after Michael,” Dean continued his train of thought.

“Then, we gotta get him outta here,” Emma said immediately.

“No,” Dean came back. “No, that’d blow the whole deal.”

“What? Then you wanna use the kid as bait?” Emma asked, Dean’s raised eyebrow telling her that was exactly what he was thinking. “Are you nuts? No! Forget it, that’s out of the question.”

“It’s not out of the question, Emma,” Dean told her. “It’s the only way. If this thing disappears, it could be years before we get another chance.”

“Michael’s a kid,” Sam butt in. “And I’m not gonna dangle him in front of that thing like a worm on a hook.”

“Dad did not send me here to walk away,” Dean practically yelled at the other two in the room.

“Send you here?” Sam repeated. “He didn’t send you here, he sent us here.”

“This isn’t about you!” Dean yelled, turning away from the two of them. “All right, I’m the one that screwed up. It’s my fault. There’s no tellin’ how many kids have gotten hurt because of me.”

“What are you saying, Dean? How is it your fault?” Sam asked. Dean said nothing. Emma let out a small sigh, walking up to her boyfriend.

“Dean, you’ve been hiding something from the get-go. Since when does your dad bail on a hunt? Since when does he let something get away?” Emma said, watching as Dean sat down on the bed and sitting beside him. “Now, talk to me, babe. Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

For a moment, Dean still remained silent. He wasn’t even looking at either of them, instead finding the floor highly interesting. And in that moment, Emma thought she wasn’t going to get anything, that he was going to stay as quiet as usual. Until he began to speak.

“Fort Douglas, Wisconsin. It was the third night in this crap room, and I was climbin’ the walls, man. I needed to get some air,” Dean said, remembering that night as clear as any other.

@~~>~~~

Back in the motel room, the last time Dean remembered being in Wisconsin, and him and Emma are sat watching TV. Have been for what felt like hours to Dean, and he was pretty sick of it. With a heavy sigh, he flicked the off switch on the TV remote and headed for the door.

“Hey! I was watching that,” Emma said once the TV had been turned off, looking up at Dean stood by the door. “What are you doing?”

“Going out to….” Dean said, thinking. “Well, anywhere.”

“You know what your dad said, Dean,” Emma said, ever the practically girl. “What he always says. We can’t….”

“Leave Sam, I know. But you can’t tell me that you’re not going mad in here. I know I am,” Dean said, looking Emma over. He knew the girl pretty well, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was just as bored as he was. Seeing her giving in, he held out his hand to her. “Come on, we won’t be gone long. Promise.”

Emma still sat there, watching Dean at the door. The word ‘promise’ didn’t always hold true when Dean Winchester said it, Emma had figured that. But that didn’t mean Dean wasn’t right and she wasn’t going out of her mind stuck in this room staring at the crap on the TV for hours on end. So with a smile she gave up, taking Dean’s hand and letting him lead her out of the door in front of him. She turned back and watched as Dean glanced briefly at a sleeping Sam in his room before closing the door and heading across the street with Emma.

In the end, the pair ended up in an arcade about two minutes away. They each took turns playing the games, Dean letting Emma go first as he had muttered ‘ladies first’ which a cheeky grin. Right now, they were playing the last available game in the place, having gone through all the others. You see, the minute Emma had started beating Dean, as she had done with every other game there, he claimed he was bored and moved on to another.

Emma stood behind Dean now, watching him as he tried to beat her high score. But the way things were looking, he wasn’t gonna succeed.

“Kids,” they heard behind them, turning to see the owner watching them. “We’re closin’ up.”

Claiming his game unfinished, therefore leaving them in a draw, Dean walked the two of them back to their motel room.

The minute they entered the room, Dean could tell there was something wrong. That theory was justified when the two of them froze, looking in at the white light streaming from the bedroom, where Sam was. Hearing Emma give a small gasp, Dean gently manoeuvred her behind him, cautiously entering the room.

Inside the room, Dean found the shtriga hovering over Sam, sucking the life force from his little brother. Working how he had been trained by his father, Dean reached quietly for the rifle by the door, taking aim at the shtriga and cocking the gun. The minute it heard the gun cock, the shtriga now turned to Dean… and he froze. All Dean had been taught, and when it mattered, he froze.

Before the shtriga had chance to do anything though, the front door burst open and John rushed inside.

“Get out of the way!” he called, and Dean and Emma immediately ducked, not a second too soon as John fired at the shtriga, sending it shrieking into the night though the open window. His youngest more important than the monster right now, John rushed over to Sam, trying to shake him awake. “Sammy. Sammy. Sammy! Are you okay?”

“Dad, what’s goin’ on?” young San muttered sleepily.

“You all right?” John asked, hugging his youngest tight as Dean and Emma moved to the doorway, catching John’s attention. “What happened?”

“I… I just went out,” Dean stuttered.

“What?” John said, horrified.

“J… just for a second. I’m sorry,” Dean tried to justify.

“I told you not to leave this room. I told you not to let him out of your sight!” John said almost tearfully, still holding Sam tight. Dean just watched as his father, his hero, was disappointed in him for the first time, feeling slender fingers entwine with his as Emma held his hand.

@~~>~~~

The modern day Dean had that same tearfully look in his eyes as he remembered, and the same girl was sat beside him, that same hand holding his again.

“Dad just grabbed us and booked, dropped us off at Pastor Jim’s about three hours away,” Dean continued with the story. “By the time we got back to Fort Douglas, the shtriga disappeared. It was just gone. It never resurfaced until now. Dad never spoke about it again. I didn't ask. But he, uh… he looked at me different, you know… which was worse. Not that I blame him. He gave me an order, and I didn’t listen. I almost got you killed, Sam.”

“You were just a kid,” Emma tried to calm him.

“Don’t… don’t. Dad knew this was unfinished business for me. And he sent me here to finish it,” Dean said, turning away from Emma and knocking the room into momentary silence.

“But using Michael?” Emma spoke into the silence. “I don’t know, Dean. I mean, how about one of us hides under the cover, you know, we’ll be the bait?”

“No, that won’t work,” Dean said. “It’s gotta get close enough to feed. It’ll see us. Believe me, I don’t like it. But it’s gotta be the kid.”

Dean stood, pulling his hand from Emma’s and walking across the room. He didn’t want to put the kid through this as much as they didn’t… but he also didn’t want the guilt of feeling responsible for more kid’s deaths.

@~~>~~~

Trying to get Michael to cooperate, they had decided honesty was the best policy on exactly why they needed his help. That hadn’t worked out so well, though, as now Michael was stood in front of them, brandishing a phone.

“You’re crazy!” Michael screamed at them. “Just go away, or I’m calling the cops.”

“Hang on a second. Just listen to me,” Dean tried to calm him. “You have to believe me, okay? This thing came through your window, and it attacked your brother. Now, I’ve seen it. I know what it looks like. ‘Cause it attacked my brother once, too.”

“This thing,” Michael said softly, putting the phone back in its cradle. “Is it, like… it has this long, black robe?”

“You saw it last night, didn’t you?” Dean surmised.

“I thought I was havin’ a nightmare,” Michael mumbled, almost to himself.

“I’d give anything not to tell you this,” Dean said. “But sometimes, nightmares are real.”

“So, why are you telling me?” Michael asked.

“Because we need your help,” Dean told him simply.

“My help?” Michael repeated.

“We can kill it,” Dean told him, nodding back to Sam and Emma behind him. “The three of us, it’s what we do. But we can’t do it without you.”

“What? No!” Michael exclaimed.

“Michael, listen to me,” Dean said softly. “This thing hurt Asher, and it’s gonna keep hurting kids unless we stop it, you understand me?”

Sam, Dean and Emma waited, watching Michael as he thought it over, waiting for the answer they hoped.

@~~>~~~

The answer they got was not the answer they hoped. Instead of giving Michael advice on just how they needed his help, the three of them were back in the motel room, trying to think up a plan B.

“Well, that went crappy,” Dean said, thinking on their uneventful conversation with the boy. “Now what?”

“What'd you expect?” Emma said to him. “You can’t ask an adult to do something like that, much less a kid.”

A soft knock on the door interrupted their planning and Dean opened it to find just who they least expected right now on the other side. Michael.

“If you kill it, will Asher get better?” Michael asked first off. Dean gave a quick glance back as Sam and Emma before giving his answer, their looks both encouraging him that what he was about to say was actually the right thing.

“Honestly, we don’t know,” Dean said truthfully.

“You said you’re a big brother?” Michael said to him.

“Yeah,” Dean said.

“You’d take care of your little brother?” Michael asked. “You’d do anything for him?”

“Yeah, I would,” Dean said without hesitation, truly meaning it. If he’d have turned round, he would have seen the small smile on Emma’s face, and the truly touched look on Sam’s.

“Me, too,” Michael said simply. “I’ll help.”

@~~>~~~

‘Helping’ simply put Michael in his bedroom, Sam, Dean and Emma would do the rest. And to make sure they were on cue to keep Michael out of the thick of it, Dean was setting up a camera in his bedroom, Sam and Emma a room away watching the feed.

“Now, this camera has night vision on it, so we’ll be able to see as clear as day,” Dean said to Michael before turning his attention to Sam through the two way. “Are we good?”

“Hair to the right,” Sam told him, and Dean adjusted the camera like he asked. “There, there.”

“What do I do?” Michael asked Dean as he sat on the bed opposite him.

“You just stay under the covers,” Dean told him.

“And if it shows up?” Michael asked.

“Well, we’ll be right in the next room,” Dean tried to reassure him. “We’re gonna come in with guns. So, as soon as we do, you roll off this bed and you crawl under it.”

“What if you shoot me?” Michael asked, his fear showing.

“We won’t shoot you. We’re good shots. We’re not gonna fire until you’re clear, okay?” Dean asked him, and Michael nodded in response. “Have you heard a gunshot before?”

“Like, in the movies?” Michael asked.

“It’s gonna be a lot louder than in the movies. So, I want you to stay under the bed, cover your ears, and do not come out until we say so, you understand?” Dean told him. Again, Michael gave a nod in answer. “Michael, you sure you wanna do this? You don’t have to, it’s okay. I won’t be mad.”

“No, I’m okay,” Micheal said, trying to keep his shaky voice strong. “Just don’t shoot me.”

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. I promise,” Dean guaranteed.

@~~>~~~

What felt like hours later, Sam, Dean and Emma sat huddled in the tech room, keeping a close watch for anything happening in Michael’s room as he remained curled beneath the covers of his bed.

“What time is it?” Dean asked.

“Three,” Emma answered with a quick glance at her watch. “You sure these iron rounds are gonna work?”

“Consecrated iron rounds. And, yeah, it’s what Dad used last time,” Dean said, the room going back to silence as the trio simply started to wait again.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam said into the silence. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Dean asked, confused.

“Well, you know….” Sam began with a sigh. “I’ve really given you a lot of crap for always followin’ Dad’s orders. But I know why you do it.”

“Oh, God, kill me now,” Dean groaned out, Sam smiling as Dean’s attention went back to the screen, something catching his eye. “Wait, look.”

Inside the room, what they had been waiting for all night was finally happened as the shtriga was beginning to make its way into the bedroom, unlocking the window and sweeping inside.

“Now?” Emma asked as the three of the slowly reached for their guns beside them.

“Not yet,” Dean told her.

In the bedroom, the shtriga moved closer to the bed, bending down over Michael’s sleeping form, ready to start sucking the life force from him. It was then that the door burst open, Sam, Dean and Emma rushing in with guns drawn.

“Hey!” Dean yelled, making the shtriga turn to him. “Michael, down!” Michale did just as he had been told, rolling off the bed and crawling under it as Sam, Dean and Emma shot at the shtriga, firing until it was on the ground.

“Mike, you all right?” Dean called into the room.

“Yeah,” Michael replied.

“Sit tight,” Dean said as he, Sam and Emma stepped over to the shtriga, seeing the body ridden with bullet holes. With a look between the three of them, Sam, Dean and Emma lowered their guns and just stood looking over the body. And that was it’s cue to strike.

Sitting bolt upright, what they had thought was a dead shtriga came at them, going for Dean and Emma first, throwing the two of them back and into the closet across the room.

“Dean! Emma!” Sam called out, the shtriga now noticing the lone person across the room.

Leaping forward, he pushed Sam to the ground, choking him. Sam’s survival instincts made him reach for his gun, but it was just out of his reach, his energy fading as the shtriga began to suck the life force out of him, the colour draining from his face.

“Hey!” Dean called from across the room, the shtriga again turning to the yelled voice. And the minute it did, one shot between the eyes from Dean had him rolling limply away from Sam. “You okay, little brother?”

His reply came in the form of a thumbs-up sign at his brother, his breathing still heavy as the colour came back to his face. Dean pulling him to his feet, the brother moved over to Emma, already on her feet, as she stood over the shtriga. Dean shot into it three more times and that did it, the thing disappearing and leaving nothing but robes behind.

“It’s okay, Michael,” Emma said softly into the room. “You can come on out.”

Michael slowly slid himself from under the bed, getting to his feet and moving over to the trio, looking down at the pile of robes that had moments ago attacking him. As weird as all this was right now, he still felt brave for being the one to help Sam, Dean and Emma take this down, and hopefully saving his little brother in the process.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, with their work done, Sam, Dean and Emma were loading their belongings into the back of the Impala and Michael’s mum came heading towards them.

“Hey, Joanna,” Emma said in greeting. “How’s Asher doin’?”

“Have you seen Michael?” Joanna asked them first.

“Mom, Mom!” Michael’s voice rang out as he came running outside, answering for them.

“Hey!” Joanna said, hugging him as he ran up to her.

“How’s Ash?” Michael asked.

“I’ve got some good news,” Joanna said with a wide smile. “Your brother’s gonna be fine.”

“Really?” Michael said.

“Yeah, really. No one can explain it. It’s a miracle,” Joanna said, not noticing the knowing look shared by Sam, Dean and Emma in front of her. “They’re gonna keep him in overnight for observation, but after that, he’s comin’ home.”

“That’s great,” Dean said.

“How are all the other kids doin’?” Sam asked.

“Good,” Joanna said. “Real good. A bunch of them should be checkin’ out in a few days. Dr. Travis says the ward’s gonna be like a ghost town.”

“Dr. Travis?” Sam questioned. “What about Dr. Hydecker?”

“Oh, he wasn’t in today,” Joanna explained simply. “Must’ve been sick or something.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, trying not to smirk. “Yeah, must have.”

“So, did anything happen while I was gone?” Joanna asked her son.

“No. Same old stuff,” Michael said with a little knowing smile of his own.

“Okay,” she said. “You can go see Ash.”

“Now?” Michael asked.

“Only if you want to,” Joanna said. With a smile, Michael was off like a shot, racing to the car. “I better get going before he hotwires the car and drives himself.” Joanna walked after him with a smile at the trio and Dean slammed the trunk shut, Sam sliding into the back seat.

“It’s too bad,” Emma said softly.

“Oh, they’ll be fine,” Dean said.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Emma went on. “I meant Michael. He will always know there are things out there in the dark. He’ll never be the same, you know? Sometimes I wish that….”

“What?” Dean asked, a little weary of the serious tone in his girlfriend’s voice.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Emma started quickly. “I love you, love being with you and Sam and wouldn’t change that right now. But sometimes… I don’t know, I just wish I could have that kind of innocence.”

With a sigh, Dean turned to watch Joanna and Michael drive away, off to see the brother he had helped save last night.

“If it means anything,” Dean said, turning back to Emma. “Sometimes I wish you could, too.”

Smiling gently at his girlfriend, Dean got into the front seat of his car, ready to drive to the next town. Moments later, Emma followed, slipping into the passenger seat with a smile of her own. Who needed innocence. She was on the road with the two guys who meant most to her in the world, saving lives. That was worth everything.


	19. Provenance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> A young couple is murdered in their home shortly after buying an antique painting of a family portrait circa 1910. Upon reviewing the painting's provenance, Sam, Dean and Emma learn that everyone who has ever bought the painting has been murdered and race to discover how the portrait is causing the deaths before it can claim its next victim.

Coming back from the charity auction, Anne Telesca was stood watching as her husband, Mark, hung the ugly ass painting he had insisted on buying. It was a family portrait consisting of a father, mother, daughter and two sons, all creepy looking, but the father just downright scary.

“Okay, right about there,” Mark said as he finished hanging the painting. “I think that’s it.”

“I can’t believe we actually bought this thing,” Anne said with a laugh.

“There’s a reason charity auctions have an open bar,” Mark told her.

“Don’t you think….” Anne began. “I don’t know, it’s kind of….creepy.”

“It’s okay,” Mark said huskily, trailing his hand down the small of her back, making her laugh again. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Maybe you’re the one I ought to be scared of,” Anne said, turning to her husband and kissing him passionately. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“Give me two minutes to lock up,” Mark said, and Anne kissed him again. “Make that one minute.”

Laughing, Anne made her way upstairs while her husband turned off the lights and locked up downstairs. Mark’s back turned to the painting and Anne already close to the top of the stairs, neither noticed as the old man in the painting moved his head, surveying the scene.

Making his way to the front door to lock it, a strange feeling comes over Mark and he turns, thinking eyes on him. But nobody is there and the painting is as it should be. Brushing it off as nothing more than the chills, Mark sets the alarm system and makes his way upstairs, again not noticing the odd movements of the painting… or the razor blade from the picture now nowhere to be seen.

Upstairs, Anne is now ready for bed, stepping out of the bathroom in a nightgown, and merely waiting for her husband. Placing an already lit candle on the bedside table, Anne lies across the bed, waiting.

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna start without you,” Anne calls down to her husband.

Slowly, the bedroom door opens and before Anne can speak, the candle blows out, leaving only the shadow of a figure entering her room.

@~~>~~~

The house now secure, Mark enters his bedroom, undressing as he moves.

“Babe, get the lights. I can’t see a thing,” he calls to his wife, bending down across the bed towards her but stopping. “You smell somethin’?”

Switching on a nearby lamp himself, Mark looks down at his hand, at the sticky substance he had felt coating it as he placed his hand on the bed, and finds it covered in blood.

“Anne?” he questions as he turns to her, and suddenly finds the source of the blood.

Lying on the bed, throat slashed and lying in a pool of her own blood is his wife, Anne. Shrieking her name, he stumbles back away from the bed, tripping and falling to the floor, pressing himself as close to the wall as he can.

But there is no escape from the shadowed figure now looming over him, razor blade in hand.

@~~>~~~

A few towns over, Dean Winchester is stood at a bar, flirting with the pretty young woman beside him and most definitely getting somewhere, his phone out to input her number.

“All right, you’re in there. Perfect,” Dean says to the giggling girl. “Oh, is that Brandy with a ‘y’ or an ‘i’?”

A few tables away, Sam is sat doing what Dean is meant to be doing, researching the case he had told him about yesterday. He is, however, doing this alone. Emma is sat beside him, her attention somewhat misplaced as well as she has her back to Sam, making nice with the guy sat beside her, simpering and giggling like the girl she is not. He eyes going to the newspaper and headline beside him, ‘Couple’s Throats Slashed in Own Home’, Sam decided he might need a little help and waves over Dean, who totally ignores him. With a sigh, Sam turns to Emma for a little assistance, tapping her shoulder.

“Errr, Em… little help here,” Sam asked. Emma looked over in the direction he was motioning and sighed before turning back to her guy with a wide smile, clearly faked, but like he would notice.

“Give me one moment,” she said sweetly to him then turned back to Dean, who was now watching her closely like she figured he would be. Smiling his way, she motioned him over. First, like Emma had done, he turned to his companion.

“All right, listen, I gotta go. Hold that thought, I’ll be right back, okay?” Dean told her, making his way over to the table his brother and girlfriend was sat at, taking the other seat beside Emma and looking over at the guy she had been chatting with, now engrossed in a probably highly intellectual conversation with his mates!

“Who was he?” Dean asked Emma.

“Who was she?” Emma asked, motioning to the girl Dean had just moved away from, who was still flicking glances his way.

“Ok, touché,” Dean replied.

“All right, so, I think I got somethin’,” Sam broke into the conversation.

“Oh, yeah. Me, too,” Dean joked, making occasionally glances at his girlfriend. “I think we need to take a little shore leave for just a little bit. What do you think, huh? I’m so in the door with this one.”

“So, what are we today, Dean?” Sam asked. “Are we rock stars? Are we army rangers?”

“Reality TV scouts looking for people with special skills,” he said, making Sam and Emma laugh. “I mean, hey, it’s not that far off, right? By the way, she’s got a friend over there. I could probably hook you up, what do you think?”

“Dean, no thanks,” Sam told his brother. “I can get my own dates.”

“Yeah, you can, but you don’t,” Dean replied.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Sam questioned.

“Nothin’. What do you got?” Dean said, suddenly desperate to get back on the topic of hunting.

“Mark and Anne Telesca of New Paltz, New York were both found dead in their home just a few days ago,” Sam began to explain to them.

“Mm hmm,” Dean answered, neither his or Emma’s attention on what Sam was saying. Dean was staring at the girls across the bar while Emma continued to smile at her guy beside her.

“Throats were slit, there were no prints, no murder weapons… guys,” Sam grated out, seeing where Dean and Emma’s attention’s were and knocking them back to him. “No prints, no murder weapons, all doors and windows were locked from the inside.”

“Could just be a garden-variety murder,” Emma suggested. “You know, not our department.”

“No, Dad says different,” Sam told them.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked.

“Look,” Sam said, turning the journal page he had been looking at around so Dean and Emma could see it. “Dad noted three murders in the same area of upstate New York. First one, right here, 1912, the second one in 1945, and the third in 1970. The same M.O. as the Telescas. The throats were slit, the houses were locked from the inside. Now, so much time passed between the murders that nobody checked the pattern, except for Dad. He always kept his eyes peeled for another one.”

“And now we got one,” Emma finished.

“Exactly,” Sam said.

“All right, I’m with ya. It’s worth checkin’ out,” Dean said, Sam giving him a nod as he glanced between the girl at the bar and the guy beside Emma. “We can’t pick this up till the first thing, though, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, slightly confused.

“Good,” Dean replied, taking Emma’s hand and dragging her up and towards the exit of the bar while his girl and her guy looked on, their prizes for the night lost to each other.

“You are a tease, you know that,” Emma said, laughing.

“Oh, and you’re not?” Dean replied.

“It’s just playful banter with me,” Emma replied indignantly.

“Same with me,” Dean said.

“Yeah, right,” Emma muttered under her breath, Dean stopping dead at the door and pulling Emma to a stop beside him.

“Do you want me to go back over there and take Brani with me instead?” Dean threatened.

“Like I’d let you,” Emma said, changing their positions as she took Dean’s arm and began to drag him out of the club, Dean not protesting in the slightest.

@~~>~~~

After taking the car last night and planning to meet Sam outside the Telesca house the next day, that’s where Dean and Emma were now. By the time they had arrived, Sam had already been going through the house, so they really hadn’t wanted to disturb him. Which is why they were both sat in the front seat, asleep, Dean wearing sunglasses and Emma’s head resting against his shoulder.

Having finished searching round the house, Sam came out to find his partners in this position. Leaning in through the wind, Sam honked the horn to wake them up. Funny for him as he fell about laughing, but annoying for Dean and Emma as they jumped awake.

“Man, that is so not cool,” Dean groaned.

“I just swept the Telesca house with the EMF,” Sam said, ignoring his brother’s comment. “It’s clean. And last night, while you were… out….”

“Good times,” Dean said with a smirk, causing Emma to elbow him in the closest place she could reach, which turned out to be his ribs.

“I took the history of the house,” Sam continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted by the couple in front of him. “No hauntings, no violent crimes, nothing strange about the Telescas themselves either.”

“All right,” Dean said groggily, beginning to wake slightly. “So if it’s not the people and it’s not the house, then, uh… maybe it’s the contents, a cursed object or somethin’.”

“The house is clean,” Sam said with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, I know, you said that,” Emma began.

“No, I mean it’s empty,” Sam clarified. “No furniture, nothin’.”

“Where’s all their stuff?” Emma asked.

@~~>~~~

The Telesca’s property, it turned out, were now being auctioned off in a high class auction house. One Sam, Dean and Emma didn’t exactly fit in, but were there all the same, much to the disappointment of the owner if the look he gave them as he walked in was anything to go by.

“Silent auctions, estate sales, it’s like a garage sale for W.A.S.P.s, if you ask me,” Dean said as they wandered through all the different items. Taking some food from a tray that was swept past him, Dean popped it into his mouth just as the owner stepped up to them.

“Can I help you three?” he asked.

“I’d like some champagne, please,” Dean spat out through a mouth full of food.

“He’s not a waiter,” Emma muttered to Dean, smiling sweetly at the clearly offended man.

“I’m Sam Connors,” Sam introduced himself, holding out a hand that the owner did not take. “This is my brother, Dean, and his wife, Emma.”

Now, if Sam had switched his gaze at this point, he would have caught the sly glare being sent his way by Dean and Emma.

“We are art dealers with Connors Limited,” Sam finished.

“You’re art dealers?” the owner questioned, eyebrow raised.

“That’s right,” Sam said.

“I’m Daniel Blake. This is my auction house,” he introduced himself. “Now, this is a private showing, and I don’t remember seeing you on the guest list.”

“We’re there, Chuckles,” Dean said before Sam could speak again. “You just need to take another look.” Sam and Emma could do nothing but stare at Dean, wondering yet again how they were gonna get out of a mess Dean’s big mouth had undoubtably put them in. A waiter walked past then, a tray of Champagne glasses in his hand, and Dean snagged one.

“Oh, finally,” Dean said, sniffing the contents of the glass before grabbing Emma’s arm and turning to walk away. “Come on, darling.”

“Cheers,” Sam muttered to Daniel, frustrated, as he followed after Dean and Emma who were looking around another section of the auction, waiting for him.

“Wife!” Dean said the minute Sam stepped up to them, motioning to an equally looking annoyed Emma beside him. “Why is she suddenly my wife?”

“I had to say something to give her the ‘family’ name,” Sam told them.

“And what, the word ‘sister’ didn’t spring to mind first?” Emma muttered sarcastically to him.

“Yeah, like you too could ever pull off brother and sister,” Sam smirked at them, continuing to search round the auction house. Dean and Emma just exchanged a look and a knowing smile before doing the same. It was long before they found the painting that had only a few nights ago been newly hung at the Telesca household.

“A fine example of American primitive, wouldn’t you say?” a female voice spoke up behind them. Turning, the group found an attractive dark haired woman walking down the spiral staircase in their direction.

“Well, I’d say it’s more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses,” Sam said to the woman, who turned her eyes bashfully to the ground as she reached the bottom of the stairs and them. “But you knew that. You just wanted to see if I did.”

“Guilty. And clumsy, I apologize,” she said with a smile at Sam as Dean continued to pluck food from the passing trays, Emma rolling her eyes at him. The young woman extended her hand to Sam, which he took. “I’m Sarah Blake.”

“I’m Sam. This is my….” Sam began before turning to see that Dean was stood beside him with a mouth full of whatever food her could find. “Brother, Dean and his wife, Emma.”

“Dean?” Sarah said, looking over at the brother. “Can we get you some more mini-quiche?”

“Mm-mm,” Dean mumbled round the food. “I’m good, thanks.”

“So, can I help you with something?” Sarah asked, turning her attention to Sam.

“Yeah, actually,” Sam answered. “What can you tell us about the Telesca estate?”

“The whole thing’s pretty grisly, if you ask me,” Sarah commented. “Selling your things this soon. But, Dad’s right about one thing. Sensationalism brings out the crowds, even the rich ones.”

“Is it possible to see the provenances?” Sam asked, sharing a small smile with Sarah. Before Sarah could say yes or no to him, her father, Daniel Blake, stepped up behind the group.

“I’m afraid there isn’t any chance of that,” Daniel told them.

“Why not?” Emma asked.

“You’re not on the guest list. And I think it’s time to leave,” Daniel said, his features stern.

“Well, we don’t have to be told twice,” Dean said.

“Apparently, you do,” Daniel said, getting more annoyed the longer Sam, Dean and Emma chose to stay in his auction house.

“Okay, it’s all right,” Sam said before Dean could mess this up any more. “We don’t want any trouble. We’ll go.”

Dramatically taking Emma’s hand, Dean leaves, practically dragging her along behind him. Sam turns back to Sarah, a sad loom passing between them before he follows out after Dean and Emma.

“Dad, that was rude,” Sarah mumbled once the trio was out of earshot.

@~~>~~~

Having already decided that they were without a doubt taking on this case, Sam, Dean and Emma got themselves a room at the local motel.

“Grant Wood? Grandma Moses?” Emma said once they were stood outside their motel door, repeating what Sam had said to Sarah. “What?”

“Art history course,” Sam explained with an almost guilty smile. “It’s good for meetin’ girls.”

“It’s like I don’t even know you,” Dean muttered sarcastically as he pushed open the motel room door. Inside was one of the oh so wonderful themed rooms the group often found themselves staying in considering the kinds of places they chose to stay at. The theme of this place was 70’s, right down the disco patterned wallpaper, mirror ball glass and chrome furniture. The unfortunate thing about this though. This was by far not the worst room they had had the luck to stay in.

Unfazed by the décor, the three simply stepped inside the room, closing the door behind them and flinging their backs onto the beds as they began to unpack the essentials.

“What was it, the providence?” Dean said, thinking back to their last question to Sarah in the auction house.

“Provenance,” Emma immediately corrected him, watching as Dean tried to sound the word out. “It’s a certificate of origin, like a biography, you know? We can use ‘em to check the history of the pieces, see if anything’s got a freaky past.”

“Huh,” Dean said. “Well, we’re not gettin’ anything out of Chuckles, but, uh, Sarah?”

“Yeah,” Sam said at Dean’s smirk. “Maybe you can get her to write it all down on a cocktail napkin.”

“Not me,” Dean chuckled.

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” Sam said defiantly. “Pickups are the kind of things you two do for a little fun.”

“It wasn’t my butt she was checkin’ out,” Dean said, him and Emma completely ignoring Sam’s previous comment.

“In other words, you want me to use her to get information,” Sam clarified.

“Sometimes, you gotta take one for the team,” Dean told him as Emma held out her phone towards him.

“Call her.”

@~~>~~~

On Emma’s command, Sam had ended up being almost forced to call Sarah, which now left the two of them sat in this fancy restaurant in formal wear, the atmosphere decidedly uncomfortable as they sat making inane small talk. 

“Nice place,” Sam muttered lamely.

“Yeah,” Sarah answered, knocking them into silence again as the waiter poured them water. “Glad you called. Surprised, but glad.”

“Yeah?” Sam questioned.

“Although you seemed to have trouble getting out the words, ‘Would you like to have dinner’,” Sarah said, making Sam laugh slightly.

“Yeah. I haven’t really been on a date in a while,” Sam told her.

“Welcome to the club,” Sarah replied.

“You’re kidding me,” Sam said, Sarah shaking her head as the waiter stepped up to their table, handing them menus and placing a second, smaller one in Sam’s hand.

“The wine list,” he told Sam. Sam just nodded awkwardly, looking though the menu without the slightest clue of just what wine he was supposed to pick. His meals usually consisted of the most appetizing thing he could find to nuke in the gas station microwave, not this. Thankfully, Sarah seemed to sense that awkwardness.

“I don’t know about Romeo here, but I’ll have a beer,” Sarah told the waiter.

“And you?” the waiter asked Sam.

“Make that two,” he told him with a smile at Sarah.

“Certainly,” the waiter said, leaving their table.

It might have been that moment, or it may have even been the few beers they had each, but after that, the night turned from awkward to rather enjoyable.

“So, you studied art in school, huh?” Sam asked Sarah.

“It’s true. I was an artist. A terrible, terrible artist,” Sarah answered him with a laugh. “It’s why I’m in the auction business. And you were pre-law?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered her.

“But you didn’t go to law school. How come?” Sarah asked.

“Uh….” Sam began to stutter. “It’s a really long story for another time.”

“You’re not like any art dealer I’ve ever met,” Sarah said. Sam just looked at her, avoiding that topic completely.

“So, what’d you mean when you said you hadn’t been on a date in a while?” Sam said, trying to get her on a different subject. “You tryin’ to make me feel like I’m not such a loser?”

“I’m sure you’re many things, Sam. I’m also sure ‘loser’ isn’t one of them,” Sarah said, making Sam smile before she turned serious. “It was my mom. She died about a year ago, totally unexpected. It really threw me. I went into this shell. A nice, warm, safe shell. But lately, I’ve been thinking. It’s not what she would have wanted for me, so…. So, what about you? You’re a reasonably attractive guy.”

“Reasonably?” Sam said with a laugh.

“Why haven’t you been out and about?” Sarah asked. She waited for an answer but got none as Sam’s smile faded as he went silent. “Another long story for another time?”

Sam gave an answer this time. A small nod.

@~~>~~~

After his ‘date’, Sam had managed to get what they needed from Sarah and he was now back at the motel, going over things with Dean and Emma.

“So, she just handed the providences over to you?” Dean asked his brother.

“Provenances,” Emma corrected him, eyes still down on her research.

“Pro… provenances?” Dean tried again.

“Yes,” Sam said, interrupted Dean’s attempt to educate himself. “I went back to her place, I got a copy of the papers.”

“And?” Dean questioned.

“And nothing, that’s it,” Sam told him. “I left.”

“You didn’t have to con her or do any special favors or anything?” Dean said, eyebrow raised.

“Dean, would you get your mind out of the gutter, please?” his girlfriend called to him, making him laugh.

“You know, when this whole thing is done, we could stick around for a little bit,” Dean said to Sam.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“So you can take her out again,” Dean said simply. “It’s obvious you’re into her, even I can see that.”

“Hey, all right, I think I got somethin’ here,” Sam said, drawing their attention back to the case. Dean came over to look over Sam’s shoulder while Emma did the same from her side of the table. Sam handed the provenances over to Dean.

“Portrait of Isaiah Merchant’s family painted in 1910,” Dean read off them.

“Now, compare the names of the owners with Dad’s journal,” Sam said. Dean did that, reading off the names.

“First purchased in 1912 to Peter Simms,” Dean read. Sam pointed to their dad’s journal, Emma looking over at what he was pointing too.

“Peter Simms murdered in 1912,” Emma read, her and Dean now seeing the same thing Sam was.

“Same thing in 1945,” Dean said, looking between the papers.

“Huh. Same thing in 1970,” Emma said, reading both of the last names.

“Then stored until it was donated to a charity auction last month, where the Telescas bought it,” Sam finished for them. “So, what do you think, it’s haunted or cursed?”

“Either way, it’s toast,” Dean said with a very eager smile.

@~~>~~~

That night, Sam, Dean and Emma made their own way into the auction house, jumping over the gate and up to the main house. Outside, they found the alarm system, Emma taking off the panel and making short work off disarming it.

“Go ahead,” she told the boys. Dean used his B&E skills now to unlock the door, the three slipping inside when they heard no alarm.

Going their separate ways, the trio look for the painting, eventually finding it on the upper level. Dean cut the painting from the frame and they take it outside, laying it on the ground ready to burn.

“Ugly-ass thing. If you ask me, we’re doin’ the art world a favour,” Dean said as he lit a match and threw it onto the painting, the three of them watching it go up in flames.

What they didn’t know however was that inside the auction house, as the painting burnt to a crisp outside, it regenerated itself again inside it’s original frame, good as new.

@~~>~~~

Next morning, Sam and Emma were calmly packing up their belongings when Dean came flying out of the bathroom in a panic.

“We’ve got a problem,” Dean said frantically. “I can’t find my wallet.”

“How is that my problem?” Sam said.

“ ‘Cause I think I dropped it in the warehouse last night,” Dean said, which suddenly had Sam and Emma paying attention.

“You’re kidding, right?” Emma groaned.

“Yeah,” Dean told them, pulling on his jacket. “It’s got my prints, my ID… well, my fake ID, anyway. We’ve gotta get it before somebody else finds it, come on.”

Dean, jacket now on, marched out of the room with Sam and Emma following.

@~~>~~~

This time in daylight, Sam, Dean and Emma were searching round the auction house for Dean’s missing wallet.

“How do you lose your wallet, Dean?” Sam muttered to his brother between gritted teeth. Dean just simply shrugged as he kept on searching, none of them noticing as Sarah walked into the room behind them.

“Hey, guys,” Sarah said in greeting, Sam immediately spinning and putting down the piece of art he had in his hand, trying to act as calm as possible.

“Sarah! Hey,” he said with a big fake smile.

“What are you doing here?” Sarah asked him.

“Uh, we….” Sam began to stutter an excuse. “We’re leaving town, and you know, we came to say goodbye.”

“Oh, what are you talkin’ about, Sam?” Emma said in that overly sweet voice of hers. “We’re stickin’ around for at least another day or two.”

“Oh, Sam, by the way, I wanted to give you that twenty bucks I owe you,” Dean told his confused brother, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. The minute he saw it, he knew he had been had, by both his brother and Emma, who was still smiling sweetly beside her boyfriend. “I’m always forgettin’.” Trying his best to keep a straight face, Dean pulled a twenty from the wallet.

“There ya go,” he told Sam, who snatched the money from his brother. “Well, we’ll leave you two crazy kids alone. We gotta go do something… somewhere.” With that feeble excuse, Dean and Emma left Sam and Sarah standing nervously together.

“So….” Sam began, really not knowing what he was gonna say.

“I had a good time last night,” Sarah said, taking him out of his misery.

“Yeah,” Sam said with a small smile. “Yeah, I did, too.”

“Maybe we should do it again sometime,” Sarah asked hopefully.

“You know, I’d love to. I really would,” Sam said with a polite smile. “But Emma, she was just screwin’ around. We really are takin’ off today.”

“Oh. Well, that’s too bad,” Sarah said, clearly disappointed. Sam was about to say something, try and make all this better, when something that so couldn’t be caught his eyes. An auction house worker carrying the painting that he, Dean and Emma had burnt to a crisp last night, still in perfect condition.

“Oh, my God!” Sam cried out before he could stop himself.

“What?” Sarah asked, shocked at his outburst.

“Uh.…” Sam tried to stammer out an excuse. “That painting… looks so good.”

“If you can call that monstrosity good, then, yeah, I guess,” Sarah grumbled.

“So, what do you know about that painting?” Sam asked, trying to sound casual.

“Not much, just that it creeps me out,” Sarah said with a shudder. “We sold it to the Telescas at a charity auction the night they were murdered.”

“Yeah, and now, you’re just gonna sell it again?”

“As much as my dad wants to, no. I won’t let him. I think it’d be in bad taste.”

“Good. Yeah, you know what? Don’t, don’t, make sure you don’t, okay?”

“Why? Don’t tell me you’re interested in that.”

“No, no, God, no, not in buying it, no. You know what? I gotta go, I’ve gotta take care of something. But I will call you back. I will call you. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait, so, you’re not leaving tonight?”

“No, I guess not. See ya.”

Sam quick stepped for the exit, leaving Sarah to watch after him in confusion.

@~~>~~~

Outside, Sam, Dean and Emma climbed into the parked car, Sam explaining just what he had seen to them.

“I don’t understand, we burned the damn thing,” Sam complained.

“Yeah, thank you, Captain Obvious,” Emma grumbled back at him, so not happy that their simple plan had suddenly turned very complicated.

“All right, we just need to figure out another way to get rid of it,” Dean announced to the car. “Any ideas?”

“Okay, all right, well, um….” Sam began, thinking over everything he had learnt over all these years. “In almost all the lore about haunted paintings, it’s always the painting’s subject that haunts them.”

“Yeah?” Dean agreed.

“All right, so, we need to figure out everything there is to know about that creepy-ass family in that creepy-ass painting,” Emma suggested.

“What were their names again?” Dean asked.

@~~>~~~

Doing what now needed to be done and trying to get in all the information they could on the family in the painting, Sam, Dean and Emma were sat in the library, listening to the librarian as he was all too eager to tell them what he knew.

“You said the Isaiah Merchant family, right?” the librarian said, clutching an old newspaper close to his chest.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Sam told him.

“I dug up every scrap of local history I could find,” he said. “So, uh, are you three crime buffs?”

“Kind of,” Emma said. “Why do you ask?”

“Well….” the librarian asked, holding up the old newspaper for the trio to see the headline, which read ‘Father Slaughters Family, Kills Self’.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Dean muttered.

“The whole family was killed?” Sam asked the librarian.

“It seems this Isaiah, he slits his kids’ throats, then his wife, then himself,” the librarian said, almost a little too excited. “Now, he was a barber by trade, used a straight razor.”

“Why’d he do it?” Emma asked the obvious question.

“Well, let’s look,” the librarian said, looking over the story himself. “Uh, ‘people who knew him described Isaiah as having a stern and harsh temperament and controlled his family with an iron fist’. Wife, two sons, adopted daughter… yeah, yeah. There were whispers that the wife was gonna take the kids and leave, which, of course, you know, in that day and age…. So, instead, Old Man Isaiah… well, he gave them all a shave.” Added emphasis to his story, the librarian made a slashing motion across his throat, Dean and Emma smiling encouragingly at him while Sam stayed straight faced.

“Does it say what happened to the bodies?” Dean asked.

“It just says they were all cremated,” the librarian said. Sam, Dean and Emma internally grumbled. What they thought was an open and shut case was getting more complicated by the minute.

“Anything else?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. Actually, I found a picture of the family. It’s right here somewhere,” the librarian said, opening a book to show them. “Right. Here it is.” The librarian turned the page to show them a smaller version of the portrait they had already seen… only with one small difference that only Emma seemed to notice.

“Hey, could we get a copy of this, please?” Emma asked the librarian.

“Sure,” he said with a wide smile, scampering away to deal with her request.

@~~>~~~

Back at the auction house, Sarah walked up behind her father to find him doing just what he had promised he wouldn’t. Having two workers pack up the Merchant Family painting to be sold on again.

“Dad, you promised you wouldn’t sell that painting,” Sarah moaned to him.

“I know, sweetie, but Evelyn’s offered a persuasive amount of money,” Daniel told her.

“You’re shameless, you know that?” Sarah told her father.

“For that kind of money, I can afford to be,” Daniel said as he walked off after the workers and the painting.

@~~>~~~

Back at the motel, Sam, Dean and Emma were sat round the table as Emma told them just why she thought they needed a copy of the painting.

“I’m telling you, I’m sure of it,” Emma told them. “Painting at the auction house, Dad is lookin’ down. Painting here, Dad’s lookin’ out. The painting has changed.”

“All right, so, you think Daddy Dearest is trapped in the painting?” Dean said. “He’s handin’ out Columbian neckties like he did with his family?”

“Yeah, it seems like it,” Emma agreed. “But if his bones are already dusted, then how are we gonna stop him?”

“All right, well, if Isaiah’s position changed, maybe some other things in the painting changed as well,” Dean suggested. “It could give us some clues.”

“What, like a DaVinci Code deal?” Sam said.

“I don’t know, I’m still waitin’ for the movie on that one,” Dean said to his more book friendly brother. “Anyway, we gotta get back in and see that painting. Which is a good thing because you can get some more time to crush on your girlfriend.”

“Dude, enough already,” Sam grumbled as Dean moved across the room to flop down onto the bed.

“What?” Dean asked as Emma moved to lie beside him.

“What?” Sam repeated. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been tryin’ to pimp me out to Sarah. Just back off, all right?”

“Well, you like her, don’t you?” Dean said, to which Sam said nothing. “All right, you like her, she likes you, you’re both consenting adults….”

“What’s the point, Dean? We’ll just leave. We always leave.”

“Well, I’m not talkin’ about marriage, Sam.”

“You know what, I don’t get it. What do you care if I hook up?”

“Because then maybe you wouldn’t be so cranky all the time,” Dean retorted. Sam just scoffed, making Dean sit up as he continued. “You know, seriously, Sam, this isn’t about just hookin’ up, okay? I mean, I think this Sarah girl could be good for you. And I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m sure that this is about Jessica, right?”

Again, Sam said nothing, just looked away. Dean took a deep breath before looking down at Emma whose gaze was fixed on the two of them, watching the interaction. And not for the first time, he knew how much she reminded him that he could never know what Sam was feeling. Jessica had died, while the woman he loved was still lay by his side night after night. And right now, as he tried to persuade and comfort his brother, he had never been more overjoyed at that fact.

“Now, I don’t know what it’s like to lose somebody like that, but… I would think that she would want you to be happy,” Dean said as he turned back to Sam, feeling Emma’s eyes this time solely on him and feeling the smile pull across her lips. “God forbid, have fun once in a while. Wouldn’t she?”

“Yeah, I know she would,” Sam said with a faint smile. “Yeah, you’re right. Part of this is about Jessica. But not the main part.”

“What’s it about?” Dean asked, but Sam didn’t answer him. So he did something very unusually for him. He simply lay back on the bed and let the subject drop. “Yeah, all right. Well, we still gotta see that painting, which means you still gotta call Sarah, so….”

Sam gave a small nod, picking up the phone and dialling the number as he knew his brother was right. While Sam sat across the room and waited for Sarah to pick up, Emma moved closer across the bed, lying against Dean’s side. As he looked down at her she leant up, smiling as she placed a small kiss on his cheek before relaxing into his arms. Dean just smiled that contented smile he only seemed to get when he was around Emma, holding her closer.

“Sarah, hey,” Sam said across the room as Sarah picked up on the other end. “It’s Sam. Hey, hi. Good, good, yeah, um, what about you? Yeah, good, good, really good.”

“Smooth,” Emma muttered with a roll of her eyes, making Sam clear his throat and get to the point.

“So, listen, me and my brother were thinking that maybe we’d like to come back in and look at the painting again. I think maybe we are interested in buying it. What?” Sam exclaimed, sitting up straighter and making Dean do the same, sitting upright on the bed and practically knocking Emma off him in his rush. “Who’d you sell it to? Sarah, I need an address right now.”

@~~>~~~

The painting was already taking pride of place on Evelyn’s wall as she sat in her living room, book open and the painting looking down on her. Literally as, engrossed in her book, she didn’t notice Isaiah’s gaze flick more closely to her. Nor did she notice, as she placed her book down and took a sip of her tea, the shadow that moved across the room, straight razor in hand. She did, however, sense the presence as it stopped behind her, turning and giving a terrified scream at what she saw.

@~~>~~~

Later that same night, Sam Dean and Emma pulled to a screeching halt outside Evelyn’s house after getting the address from Sarah to find Sarah already waiting for them.

“Sam, what’s happening?” she asked as the trio jumped out of their car.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come,” Sam said as the group now raced up to the front door, Dean knocking and yelling inside.

“You said Evelyn might be in danger,” Sarah continued, ignoring Sam’s comment. “What kind of danger?”

“I can’t knock this sucker down. We gotta pick it,” Dean said to which Emma, this time the one with the lock picking equipment in her pocket, bent to quickly pick the lock while Sam and Sarah continued arguing as Sam looked for another way in.

“What are you guys, burglars?” Sarah said.

“I wish it was that simple,” Sam replied as Emma got the door open, her, Sam and Dean heading inside. “Look, you really should wait in the car, it’s for your own good.”

“The hell I will, Evelyn’s a friend,” Sarah said, following the three inside. Moving through the house, they came to the living room first, seeing Evelyn sat in her armchair with her back to them.

“Evelyn? Evelyn?” Sarah called out as she moved closer to the chair, hand outstretched. “It’s Sarah Blake. Are you all right?”

“Sarah, don’t,” Sam said as Sarah placed her hand on Evelyn’s shoulder, seeing what she wasn’t. “Sarah!”

Too late. Sarah had already begun to turn Evelyn’s chair to face her, seeing the same thing, Evelyn’s head tilted back, eyes staring lifeless at them as a deep gash across her throat still dripped blood. Sarah gave out an ear splitting scream, backing up and averting her eyes. Her eyes moved up, to the painting, to find Isaiah’s form had moved and he was now staring directly down at her.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Sarah continued to chant as Sam manoeuvred her from the room.

@~~>~~~

Next day, Sam Dean and Emma were back at the motel, without Sarah this time, and Sam was beginning to pace a whole into the carpet when a knock on the door caught his attention. Opening it, he found Sarah on the other side.

“Hey,” Sam said as she practically marched into the room. “You all right?”

“No, actually,” Sarah answered. “I just lied to the cops and told them I went to Evelyn’s alone and found her like that.”

“Thank you,” Sam said to her.

“Don’t thank me,” Sarah told him. “I’m about to call ‘em right back if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on. Who’s killing these people?” At her question, Sam, Dean and Emma shared a look. She had seen exactly the same as what she had seen last night, now wasn’t the time for sugar coating.

“What,” Sam said to her simply.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“It’s not who, it’s what is killing these people,” Sam said, simply confusing Sarah more. “Sarah, you saw that painting move.”

“No,” Sarah said defiantly. “No, I was seeing things. It’s impossible.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to our world,” Emma muttered from her and Dean’s side of the room.

“Sarah,” Sam said her name softly, trying to comfort her. “I know this sounds crazy, but we think that that painting is haunted.”

“You’re joking,” Sarah said, tears forming in her eyes. Sam said nothing, giving her the answer. “You’re not joking. God, the guys I go out with.”

“Sarah, think about it. Evelyn, the Telescas. They both had the painting, and there have been others before that. Wherever this thing goes, people die, and we’re just tryin’ to stop it. And that’s the truth.”

“Well, then, I guess you better show me. I’m coming with you.”

“What? No. Sarah, no, you should just go home. This stuff can get dangerous, and…. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Look, you guys are probably crazy, but if you’re right about this… well, me and my dad sold that painting, we might have got these people killed. I’m not saying I’m not scared, ‘cause I am scared as hell, but I’m not gonna run and hide, either. So, are we going or what?”

With that, Sarah swept out of the room, leaving Sam, Dean and Emma simply staring after her.

“Sam?” Dean said into the silence, Sam turning to him. “Marry that girl.”

“As soon as you marry her,” Sam said, pointing to Emma with a smirk before following Sarah out. Dean and Emma shared a somewhat horrified look before jumping up and leaving the room. Neither were the marrying kind and they knew it. That was why they worked so well.

Sam, on the other hand….

@~~>~~~

Back up at Evelyn’s mansion, where the painting was still being kept, Sarah watched with some interest as Sam, Dean and Emma attempted to break into the house.

“Uh, isn’t this a crime scene?” Sarah stated.

“Well, you’ve already lied to the cops. What’s another infraction?” Emma said with a smile as she sliced through the police seal on the door, the four of them heading right back into the living room they had run from last night.

Once inside, Sam pulled the painting down from the wall and leans it against a chair as Dean takes out the copied version they obtained from the library, the trio comparing the two different paintings. Sarah stood back away from the painting, not too keen on getting close to it again.

“Aren’t you worried that it’s gonna, you know, kill us?” Sarah asked nervously.

“No, it seems to do its thing at night,” Sam said as Dean and Emma continued to compare the paintings. “I think we’re all right in daylight.”

“Sam, check it out,” Dean said, handing Sam the photo. “The razor. It’s closed in this one, but it’s open in that one.”

“What are you guys looking for?” Sarah asked them.

“Well,” Emma began to explain. “If the spirit’s changing aspects of the painting, maybe it’s doing so for a reason.” 

“Hey, look at this,” Sam told the other two. “The painting in the painting.” Dean and Emma moved closer to look, and saw the difference. In the copy they had received from the library, Isaiah was stood in front of a picture of a mountain range, but in the real painting, the picture was of some kind of building they could barely make out.

“Looks like a crypt or a mausoleum or something,” Emma said, picking up an ashtray from the table, turning it round to be used as a magnifying glass, and attempted the read the name that was printed across the top of the crypt. “Merchant.”

@~~>~~~

Now having some clue as to what they might just be looking for, Sam, Dean, Emma and Sarah were making their way from cemetery to cemetery around this town, looking for that one crypt.

“That’s the third bone yard we’ve checked,” Dean grumbled. “I think this ghost is jerkin’ us around.”

“You say that like it’s an unusual occurrence,” Emma muttered back at him.

“So, this is what you guys do for a living?” Sarah said to Sam, the two walking a couple of paces in front of Dean and Emma.

“Not exactly,” Sam told her. “We don’t get paid.”

“Well, Mazel Tov,” Sarah mumbled back.

“Over there,” Dean said, finally noticing the right crypt in this cemetery. Inside, they found your typical cobweb-covered chamber, the walls lines with the urns of the dead family members. This being a first for Sarah, she was the first to walk round, examining the crypt spaces, particularly one with a glass case below it which held a very well preserved antique child’s doll. 

“Okay, that right there is the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Sarah said, her eyes however still glued to the creepy little doll.

“It was sort of a tradition at the time,” Sam told her. “Whenever a child died, sometimes they’d preserve the kid’s favourite toy in a glass case right next to the headstone in a crypt.”

“You notice anything strange here?” Emma put to the group, having also been wandering around while Sam and Sarah had been talking.

“Uh, where do I start?” Sarah said with a shudder.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Emma said. “Look at the urns.”

“Yeah, there are only four,” Sam said, he and Dean doing as she asked.

“Yeah, Mom and the three kids,” Dean said. “Daddy Dearest isn’t here.”

“So, where is he?” Sam asked.

@~~>~~~

‘Where is he’ was one question that could only be answered by police or county records, which put Dean and Emma inside to get the information while Sam kept Sarah company outside.

“So, what exactly are your brother and his girlfriend doing in there?” Sarah asked,

“Searching county death certificates,” Sam answered. “Trying to find out what happened to Isaiah’s body.”

“How’d they even get in the door?” Sarah questioned.

“Lying and subterfuge, mostly,” Sam told her honestly, the pair laughing until something on Sarah’s face caught Sam’s attention. “You have a, um… you have an eyelash on your… no, uh, no. Do you mind if I…?”

“No,” Sarah answered and Sam moved a inch closer to her, gently brushing the eyes from her cheek and holding it out on the tip of his finger.

“Make a wish,” he told her. With a smile she did, softly blowing the eyelash off his finger.

“Sam, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t mean to be forward, but a girl can wait here forever. Is there something here, between us, or am I delusional?”

“You’re not delusional.”

“But, there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“But… I don’t think this would be a good idea.”

“Can I ask why?”

“‘Cause I like you.”

“Wait… you lost me.”

“Look it’s hard to explain... it’s just that when people are around me… I don’t know, they get hurt.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, physically hurt. With what my brother, Emma and I do, it’s….”

Sam stopped speaking at that point, the words getting stuck in his throat. The lie getting stuck in his throat. He could hear it running through his head still, the story he had been about to spin Sarah about why this wasn’t any good for her. Him, Dean and Emma, they’d done it enough times. Meet enough people through their job and spun enough completely believable stories that he was a pro at it by now. But this was different. This wasn’t some random passer by who had seen too much, or some official who they were trying to scam information out of. This was someone different, someone who Sam could actually see himself liking a lot. And someone who, after all this, deserved the truth from him.

“Sarah… I had a girlfriend,” Sam began to tell her. “And she died. And my mom died, too. I don’t know, it’s like… it’s like I’m cursed or something, like death just follows me around. Look, I’m not scared of much, but if I let myself have feelings for anybody….”

“You’re scared they’d get hurt, too,” Sarah finished for him. Sam merely nodded. “That’s very sweet. And very archaic.”

“Sorry?” Sam said.

“Look, I’m a big girl, Sam,” Sarah said with a smile. “It’s not your job to make decisions for me. There’s always a chance of getting hurt.”

“I’m not talkin’ about a broken heart and a tub of Haagen-Dazs,” Sam tried to clarify to her. “I’m talkin’ about life and death.”

“And tomorrow, I could get hit by a bus. That’s what life is,” Sarah exclaimed. “Look, I know losing somebody you love… it’s terrible. You shut yourself off, believe me, I know. But when you shut out pain, you shut out everything else, too.”

“Look, Sarah, you don’t understand,” Sam tried one last time. “The pain that I went through… I can’t go through it again. I can’t.”

Sarah was quiet this time, didn’t try to argue. She and Sam just sat there, staring into each other’s eyes… until the moment was stressed even further by Dean popping his head between the two, Emma by his side.

“Are we interrupting something?” Dean said with a smirk.

“No,” Sam answered as they both snapped their gaze away.

“Not at all,” Sarah added.

“Apparently,” Emma mumbled.

“So, what’d you get?” Sam asked, taking the easy way out and getting them back on topic.

“Pay dirt,” Emma said with a wide smile, Dean motioning to the papers he had hold of.

“Apparently, the surviving relatives of the Merchant family were so ashamed of Isaiah that they didn’t want him interred with the rest of the family,” Dean read. “So, they handed him over to the county. The county gave him a pauper’s funeral, economy-style. Turns out he wasn’t cremated, he was buried in a pine box.”

“So, there are bones to burn?” Sam questioned.

“There are bones to burn,” Emma told him.

“Tell me you know where,” Sam asked them. The smile on both their faces was all the answer he needed.

@~~>~~~

Waiting until night fall, Sam, Dean, Emma and Sarah made their way to the cemetery and grave said they had gotten from police records. While Sam and Dean were in the grave, digging up the coffin, Emma knelt on the outside, flashlight beam pointed their way, with Sarah standing just over her shoulder. Looking up, Sam dropped his shovel and, with a helping hand from Emma, pulled himself out of the grave and to Sarah’s side.

“You guys seem to be uncomfortably comfortable with this,” Sarah said, arms wrapped around her in both protection from the chill on the night air and the unusual horror of the scene in front of her.

“Yeah, well, this isn’t exactly the first grave we’ve dug. Still think I’m a catch?” Sam asked her with a smile. Before she could answer, Dean’s shovel gave off a heavy thud that reverberated into the night and was definitely not caused by the dirt.

“I think I got somethin’,” he called to them. Emma directed the flashlight over the head of the coffin, where Dean was brushing away the last layers of dirt, while Sam and Sarah watched over her shoulder to see Dean’s shovel break through coffin wood, revealing Isaiah’s bones.

Pulling himself out the grave in the way Sam had, Dean now stood up top as he, Sam and Emma poured salt and gasoline over the years old bones.

“You’ve been a real pain in the ass, Isaiah,” Dean said as he struck the match across the box, the small flame barely lighting up his face. “Good riddance.”

Throwing the match onto the bones, they watched as the small flame quickly grew, the gasoline feeding it and giving it more life and power as it steadily burned Isaiah’s bones, mixing with the purifying salt to finally finish their job.

@~~>~~~

After their previous mistakes on this case, the group weren’t taking any chances. Pulling up in the Impala outside Evelyn’s house, they had to make sure all this was really over.

“Keep the motor running,” Sam said to Dean.

“I thought the painting was harmless now,” Sarah said from the back seat.

“Better safe than sorry,” Sam said as he climbed out of the car. “We’re gonna bury the sucker.”

“I wanna come with you,” Sarah told him.

“You sure?” Sam asked her.

“Yeah,” Sarah answered, climbing out of the car after him.

“Hey, hey, hey. I’ll stay here, you go make your move,” Dean told Sam as Sarah began walking up to the house. Sam merely scoffed at his brother’s oh so typical behaviour. “Sam, I’m serious.”

Sam didn’t even bother with a reply. He simply slammed shut the car door and turned to follow Sarah up to the house. With Emma lounging in the back seat, Dean flicks the switch on the radio, the music coming out loud enough to be heard blocks away. Sam stopped at the front door and turned to Dean, matching the glare Emma was now giving the oblivious Dean from the back seat. When Dean did nothing, Sam motion for him to stop the music. It was Emma, however, who had to lean into the front of the car and help out her oblivious boyfriend, snapping the music off. Sam and Sarah continued the rest of the way into the house while it was now Dean who glared at Emma, who merely shook her head and got back in her position on the back seat, letting him sulk all he wanted.

Once in the house, Sam and Sarah again went to the living room where the painting was still hanging on the wall where they had left it. But it wasn’t exactly how they had left it. For this time, the figure that had moved within the painting was the young girl, who had disappeared completely.

“Uh, Sam? You’re the expert on all this ghost stuff. Is that painting supposed to look like that?” Sarah asked. “Where’s the little girl?” There was something else, however, that was worrying Sam a bit more than the little girl having gone missing.

“And the razor?”

From somewhere deep within the house, the eerie sound of a young girl’s laughter floated their way, putting them immediately on guard. The next sound they heard was even more shocking to them.

The heavy thud of the front door slamming itself shut, locking them inside with a murderous ghost.

The minute the front door had slammed shut, both pair had moved, Sam and Sarah rushing through the house and Dean and Emma jumping from the car, both pounding against the solid wood.

“Dean! Emma!” Sam called through the layer of wood. “Hey! Is that you?”

“Yeah, you all right?” Dean asked. The answer they got came in the form of Emma’s cell phone ringing, Sam on the other end.

“Tell me you slammed the front door,” Emma asked in greeting.

“No, it wasn’t me,” Sam told her. “I think it was the little girl.”

“The girl? What girl?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, she’s out of the painting,” Sam told her. “I think it might have been her all along.”

“Wasn’t the dad lookin’ down at her?” Dean said, having figured what ‘the girl’ had meant. “Maybe he was tryin’ to warn ‘em.”

“Hey, hey, hey, let’s recap later, all right?” Sam said frantically. “Just get us out of here.”

“Well, I’m tryin’ to pick the lock, but the door won’t budge,” Emma told Sam.

“Well, then, break it down,” Sam cried in his desperation.

“Okay, genius, let me grab my battering ram,” Emma replied down the phone to him.

“Emma, the damn thing is comin’!” Sam exclaimed.

“Well, you’re gonna have to hold it off until we figure somethin’ out,” Emma told him. “Get some salt or iron.”

“Come on,” Sam said to Sarah with a sigh, the pair splitting to look for weapons within the house. But they tore the place apart, searched everywhere they could thing, and still found nothing.

“What kind of house doesn’t have salt? Low-sodium freaks,” Sam muttered as he walked back into the room where Sarah was. “Hey, you find any iron?”

“No, what’s it for?” Sarah asked.

“Iron repels evil spirits, but it’s gotta be pure. Hurry!” Sam said to Sarah before going back to the phone in his hand and Emma. “Uh, Emma, give me a sec, don’t go anywhere.”

Like they were. Outside, Dean was still trying, though unsuccessfully, to break down the door and get into his brother. Inside, Sam and Sarah still hadn’t given up there search.

“Look under the chairs, sometimes the seats….” Sam began, but his sentence was suddenly drowned out by the rest of the doors in the house slamming, trapping Sam and Sarah into one room. An unnatural wind blew through the house, scatters papers and other objects around the room, as a low scraping sound drew their attention. Isaiah’s daughter was slowly advancing into the room, straight held high in one hand while she dragged her doll behind her with the other, an image of innocence and terror mixed together.

“Sam?” Sarah said as she and Sam tried to back away from the girl as she advanced on them. “That is just so wrong.”

As they were backing up, Sam’s foot hit against the rack of fire pokers that were positioned to the side of the fireplace. Instinct kicking in, Sam grabbed a poker as the young girls mouth opened in a soundless scream, her head shaking and twitching as she got closer. With one good swing, Sam swiped the poker through the girl, watching her dissolve into a cloud of smoke.

“Iron?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

“Sammy, you okay?” Emma’s voice rang from the phone still clicked on at hi side.

“Yeah, for now,” Sam told her.

“How we gonna waste her?” Emma questioned.

“I don’t know. She was already cremated,” Sam stated. “There’s nothin’ left to burn.”

“Well, then, how’s she still around?” Emma asked.

“There must be somethin’ else,” Sam said.

“Sam, wait,” Sarah said, jumping into the conversation. “We used to handle antique dolls at the auction.”

“Well, that’s fascinating, Sarah, but important right now?” Sam tried kindly to brush her away.

“Well, back then, they used to make the dolls in the kid’s image,” Sarah continued. “I mean, everything, like, they would use the kid’s real hair.”

“Emma?” Sam lit up into the phone. “Sarah says the doll might have the girl’s hair. Human remains, same as bones.”

As usual, as one, Sam Dean and Emma came to the same conclusion.

“The mausoleum.”

Sam and Emma hanging up their phones, Dean and Emma took off towards the car, heading to the cemetery, while Sam and Sarah now had to battle in the dark as all the lights in the house suddenly blacked out.

Suddenly, without warning, a writing desk skidded across the room, pinning Sam to the ground.

“Sam!” Sarah screamed, running towards him and helping him try to move the desk. “Come on! Push! Come on!”

The two of them pushed as hard as they could, but the desk still wasn’t moving. Turning to find some way to help Sam, Sarah instead found her face inches away from that of the young ghost girl.

In the blink of an eye, Sarah is thrown across the room, the young girl thrown with ease like she weighs nothing more than the doll clasped in her hand. And now, neither Sam or Sarah can do anything but watch as the girl closes in on Sarah, Sam due to the desk he still can not move, but Sarah down to pure fear.

@~~>~~~

Dean’s black Impala skidded through the gates of the cemetery, stopping close to the mausoleum, Dean and Emma jumping out and running inside. Dean ahead of Emma, he is the first to enter, using the butt end of his gun to try and smash open the glass. This doesn’t work however, and he turns to find another solution, but Emma has entered behind him, quite a few mental steps in front of him as usual.

“Come on, Dean!” she groans, taking the gun from him and this time using the correct end to shoot the glass, shattering it so they can pull out the doll.

Taking his lighter from his pocket, Dean holds onto the doll so its hair is dangling down over what he hopes to be his lighter flame… only the thing isn’t lighting! No matter how many times he clicks it, it is just not lighting.

“Come on, come on!” Dean muttered, mostly to himself and the lighter.

“Give me the goddamned thing!” Emma said, again snatching it from Dean’s hand. And, like last time, she is the one who gets a result, the lighter snapping on the first time for her as she holds it to the bottom of the dolls hair. In seconds, the hair is alight, Dean dropping it as they watch it burn.

@~~>~~~

Just as the girl rose the straight razor in the air, ready to slash it down across Sarah’s throat, Sam gives one final push and the desk moves. He’s quickly up with it, knocking Sarah away from the direction of the blade. Dean and Emma had got there before him though, because they watch as the girl bursts into flames, disappearing as her image is once again engrained in the painting.

Before Sam has chance to catch his breath, his cell phone buzzes to life, and he already knows who’s on the other end.

“Sam, you good?” Emma’s worried voice echoes in his ear as he picks up. Sam looks over at Sarah, whose only damage is a bloody lip, and sighs into the phone.

“Not bad,” Sam answers, hanging up the phone and collapsing back against the floor again, Sarah beside him, as they wait for Dean and Emma to show up with the car.

@~~>~~~

With the case once and all over, definitely and for sure, Sam, Dean and Emma come to the auction house for one last visit to Sarah, Dean holding more information that they should have got beforehand.

“This was archived in the county records,” Dean tells them. “The Merchants adopted daughter, Melanie. Know why she was up for adoption? ‘Cause her real family was murdered in their beds.”

“She killed them?” Sarah asked, clearly shocked.

“Yeah, who’d suspect her, a sweet little girl?” Emma said at hearing the shock in Sarah’s voice, the obvious reaction. “So, then she kills Isaiah and his family, the old man takes the blame, spirit’s been tryin’ to warn people ever since.”

“Where does this one go?” a worker asked, him and a colleague walking past and carrying the Merchant Family portrait between them.

“Take it out back and burn it,” Sarah says, receiving a look of confusion from the two. “I’m serious, guys. Thanks.” Like good little workers, they simply shrug and do as they’re told, carrying the painting outside.

“So, why’d the girl do it?” Sarah asked.

“Killin’ others, killin’ herself,” Sam queried. “Some people are just born tortured. So, when they die, their spirits are just as dark.”

“Maybe. I don’t really care,” Dean states simply. “It’s over, we move on.”

“I guess this means you’re leaving,” Sarah says with a nervous laugh. Sam just shrugs, his gaze flicking over to Dean and Emma momentarily in the silence between them.

“We’ll go wait in the car. See ya, Sarah,” Emma finally says, taking Dean’s arm ready to drag him outside. Sarah just smiles at the pair as they walk away.

“I’m the one who burned the doll, destroyed the spirit, but don’t thank me or anything,” Dean mumbles in frustration as he and Emma walk further away from the pair behind them. Smiling slight, Emma links her arm through Dean’s as they walk, leaning up to kiss his cheek.

“Awww… get over yourself,” Emma says, giving Dean another gently tug as they reach the door.

“There are a million things that I want to say to you,” Sarah says now they are alone. “But for the life of me, I can’t think of one.”

“Yeah, I’ll miss you, too,” Sam says with a small laugh.

“You know, there’s a lesson in all of this,” Sarah tells him.

“What’s that?” Sam asks.

“We all got through this in one piece,” Sarah says with a smile. “I didn’t get hurt.”

“Yeah, I’m glad for that,” Sam says.

“So, maybe you’re not cursed,” Sarah said, that hopeful ton back again. “Maybe… maybe you’ll come back and see me.”

“I will,” Sam tells her, his voice soft.

Outside, Dean and Emma watch from the car as Sam walks outside towards the, Sarah shutting the auction house door behind them. Inside, no one could see the image of Sarah, leaning against the closed door as she already wished Sam hadn’t had to leave the way he had. So much potential for something more, Sarah could feel it when she was with him, yet all that was gone now, both members in this pair having to go back to their normal lives like nothing happened at all.

Sighing softly, Sarah was just about to push herself away from the door when there was a soft knock against it. That hope she had felt so often around Sam came flooding back as she opened it, seeing Sam stood on the other side. Not one word is spoken, Sam simply swoops down and kisses her passionately, Sarah smiling against his lips as she wraps her arms around him and kisses him back.

At the car, Emma is the first to notice the scene, smiling to herself. She always loved seeing her boys happy, no matter how few and far between those moments sometimes were. Noticing where her gaze was settled, Dean turned in the same direction as Sam, smiling himself as he sees them.

“That’s my boy,” Dean said, turning back to the car and Emma to see her smile this time directed at him. Giving a soft smile back, Dean leant in, holding her chin gently and brushing a soft kiss against his girlfriend’s lips.

Each with a smile in Sam and Sarah’s direction, Dean and Emma got inside the car, prepared to wait as long as they had to if it meant Sam could have this moment.


	20. Dead Man's Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> After Daniel Elkins, a vampire hunter and John's mentor, is murdered, Sam, Dean and Emma are surprised when John himself shows up to solve the case. John discovers the vampires have taken an antique gun, which has the power to kill all supernatural beings. The family sets out to retrieve the gun from the vampires so they can use it to kill the demon that took Sam and Dean's mother.

Like any bar at night, the little local bar in Manning, Colorado was full of it’s regular patrons, chatting with their neighbours or the barmaids, downing pint after pint accompanied with bags of peanuts, throwing darts or shooting pool. And amidst all this bustle and noise, one solitary man sat alone at the bar, empty glass forgotten in front of him as he was engrossed in the journal in front of him, scribbling notes. The bartender who had been watching over him all night walks over to him, having to call his name a few times before he looks up.

“Mr. Elkins? Mr. Elkins?” she calls to him, the man looking up at her finally. “Would you like another?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Beth,” Elkins said, edging the glass gently towards the barmaid. With a smile, she walked to fill it up across the other side of the bar, stopping by one of the other locals.

“I thought they caught the Unabomber,” the man joked at her, nodding towards Elkins.

“Yeah,” Beth said with a short laugh. “Poor Mr. Elkins lives all alone up in the canyon. Same seat every day, goin’ through his papers, makin’ his little notes. He’s a nice old man. He’s just a nut.” Eyebrows raised at the man, Beth walked back over to Elkins with his now full glass.

“Here ya go,” she said to him. Elkins attention however, was suddenly somewhere else, as if an extra sense had picked up on something the rest of the bar couldn’t see or hear. Seconds later, the bar door swung open, a group of men striding in, an attractive brunette woman striding in front of the group. They walk across the room towards a table, Elkins’ eyes on them the whole time.

“What’ll you have?” Beth asked them as they took their seats.

“Jack all around,” the woman answered. “Leave the bottle.”

“You hungry?” Beth asked with a friendly smile.

“We have dinner plans,” the woman said, brushing her off.

“Okay,” Beth said, heading back over to the bar, eyes forward. “Can I get you somethin’ else, Mr. Elkins?”

Turning to the old man she had left moments ago, Beth found his seat empty, his glass untouched, and the main door swinging back shut.

@~~>~~~

The minute he had seen that group enter, Elkins had scarpered as fast as he could, running as if running for his life. Even when he was inside his home, he didn’t relax. He locked the doors, scanning every room, and stood jittery. He turned frantically, his eyes searching for any sign of his intruder, until they finally landed on the young woman from the bar now stood in front of him.

“It’s been a while,” the woman said with a sinister smile, her eyes glinting silver in the light. “I’ve gotta say, you look old.”

“What do you want?” Elkins asked nervously.

“What do you think?” the woman said, edging slowly closer to him. Moving quicker than was possible for a man his age, Elkins suddenly pulled a knife from his pocket, throwing it at the woman with dead on accuracy to hit her square in the chest.

“Damn,” the young woman said, pulling the knife from her chest like it was nothing but a pin prick. “You can do better than that.”

But Elkins had known this. The woman at least slightly distracted, Elkins made his move. He back tracked, running into his office, shutting the door behind him and securing it further by barricading it with the bookcase. Moving with a purpose now, Elkins crosses the room to the safe hidden in the wall, quickly twisting the dial to the combination lock and letting the heavy steel door swing open. Inside, the only think present is a wooden box, which Elkins scrambles to pull from the safe, opening it to reveal an antique Colt with five bullets remaining. He hurriedly begins loading the gun as the pounding on the other side begins, Elkins knowing that there are only a few good thumps before the young woman manages to break in. The gun together, ready to be aimed at her chest, the door suddenly isn’t the only thing that’s a problem. Glass shards shower down round Elkins, along with the crashing bodies of two of the men the woman had been with, instantly pinning Elkins to the ground and knocking the gun from his hand. Elkins pinned, the young woman finally breaks through the door, calmly striding in and picking up the gun from Elkins feet.

“Nice gun. Wouldn’t do you much good, of course,” she said before turning to her two comrades. “Boys? We’re eating in tonight.”

Smiling at the woman’s command, they go to work, Elkins screams lost in the wilderness around him, not a neighbour for miles to come to his rescue.

@~~>~~~

Miles away, now in the blazing light of midday, Sam, Dean and Emma sit at a diner table, their half eaten meals ignored as they look for their next job, Dean and Emma on one side reading a newspaper together while Sam sits opposite, laptop in front of him.

“All right, dude,” Dean said, finally folding the paper and putting it down on the table. “Not a decent lead in all of Nebraska. What do you got?”

“Well, I’ve been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota,” Sam told them eyes still on the computer screen. “Here, a woman in Iowa fell ten thousand feet from an airplane and survived.”

“That sounds more like ‘That’s incredible’ than, uh, ‘Twilight Zone’,” Emma said, and Sam had to agree.

“Hey, you know, we could, uh… we could just keep it in the east,” Dean suggested with a somewhat ulterior motive. “New York, upstate. We could stop by and see Sarah again, huh? She’s a cool chick, man… smokin’.” Ending his sentence in a whistle caused Emma to glare at him, smacking him upside the head. He simply looked down at her, swinging his arm round her shoulder.

“Joking,” he told her before turning back to Sam. “You two seemed pretty friendly. What do you say?”

“Yeah, maybe, someday,” Sam said with a short laugh. “But in the meantime, we’ve got a lot of work to do, Dean, and you know that.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Dean said, rolling his eyes at his over eager brother. “What else you got?”

“Uh, Manning, Colorado,” Sam continued. “A local man by the name of Daniel Elkins was found mauled in his home.”

“Elkins?” Dean repeated. “I know that name.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Emma said.

“Me either,” Sam said, continuing with the description while Dean flicked through their father’s journal. “It sounds like the police don’t know what to think. At first, they said it was some sort of bear attack, and now, they found signs of robbery.”

“Mm-hmm,” Dean said distractedly, still flicking through the journal pages until he found the one her was looking for, Emma watching him over his shoulder. “Here. Check it out.”

Dean turned the journal so Sam could see the page he had stopped on. It was what looked like one of the few address pages that was actually used for its purpose, and the top phone number listed read D. Elkins.

“You think it’s the same Elkins?” Sam questioned.

“It’s a Colorado area code,” Emma said, the three exchanging a look.

@~~>~~~

Looking into what they think just might be their kind of case, Sam, Dean and Emma break into Daniel Elkins abandoned house, searching for clues.

“Looks like the maid didn’t come today,” Dean muttered as he walked in, the mess being the first thing he noticed. Sam, on the other hand, had remained by the door, kneeling as he saw the trail of sale below his feet.

“Hey, there’s salt over here, right inside the door,” Sam yelled through the house to them.

“You mean, like, protection-against-demons salt, or, uh, ‘Oops, I spilled the popcorn’ salt?” Emma yelled back at him as she and Dean were going through Elkins stuff.

“It’s clearly a ring. You think this guy, Elkins, was a player?” Sam asked them.

“Definitely,” Dean and Emma’s voice called back to him, the confident tone there enough to make Sam follow their voices, finding them stood by a table, leaning down over Elkins journal.

“That looks a hell of a lot like Dad’s,” Sam stated.

“Yeah, except this dates back to the sixties,” Dean told him, moving the journal aside as he, Sam and Emma moved into the even messier office. This case might hold some stock after all.

“Whatever attacked him, it looks like there was more than one,” Sam said, looking around at the overturned chairs, broken furniture and open books strewn across the room.

“Looks like he put up a hell of a fight, too,” Dean said as they continued searching the room. Dean was the one to find the box which had held the Colt, although now it was empty, bullets and all. Emma was the one who knelt to the floor, examining the deep gouges she found in the hardwood floor.

“You got somethin’?” Sam asked, looking up to find her knelt in that position.

“I don’t know, just some scratches in the floor,” Emma said.

“Death throes, maybe?” Sam suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” Emma said, although she didn’t sound all that sure. Grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil from the mess of Elkins desk, she placed it on the floor, over the scratches, and used the pencil to take a rubbing. Peeling it off, she found just one of the many things this could have been.

“Or maybe a message,” she told the boys, raising the paper to them. “Look familiar?”

Taking the paper from Emma, the boys found that rather than being death throes, the scratches across the floor had marked out a definite pattern. A combination containing three letter and six digits. Elkins last attempt to pass on a message to whoever came to investigate his mysterious desk. Something the police might look over, but a trained hunter would most definitely see.

“Three letters, six digits,” Sam read. “The location and combination of a post office box. It’s a mail drop.”

“That’s just the way Dad does it,” Dean added.

@~~>~~~

After following the code to the nearest post office, Sam, Dean and Emma now sat huddled in the car, shocked at just what they had found inside the locker. All it was was a simple envelope, letter tucked inside. It was what was written on the envelope that caused their shock, two letter that could only mean one thing.

J.W.

“J.W,” Sam read off. “You think? John Winchester?”

“I don’t know,” Dean answered. “Should we open it?”

Before Sam or Emma could give him an answer, a loud knock on Dean’s side window made the three of them jump, all heads turning that way to see who was standing outside their car. And who they saw was exactly the person this envelope had been addressed to.

John Winchester, the boys father.

“Dad?” Dean muttered in shock, exchanging a confused look with Sam and Emma. John said nothing, he simply slid into the back seat of the car beside Emma.

“Dad, what are you doing here?” Sam asked. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m okay,” John finally answered them. “Look, I read the news about Daniel. I got here as fast as I could. I saw you three up at his place.”

“Why didn’t you come in, John?” Emma asked.

“You know why, because I had to make sure you weren’t followed, by anyone, or anything,” John told them. “Nice job of covering your tracks, by the way.”

“Yeah, well, we learn from the best,” Dean said with a slight smile.

“Wait,” Sam said, pulling them back on topic. “So, you came all the way out here for this Elkins guy?”

“Yeah,” John said, his voice taking on a note of sadness the three of them had never heard before. “He was… he was a good man. He taught me a hell of a lot about hunting.”

“You never mentioned him to us,” Sam stated.

“We had, uh… we had kind of a falling out,” John admitted. “I hadn’t seen him in years. I should look at that.” Knowing what he meant, Dean passed the envelope into the back seat, John ripping it open and stretching out the letter to read it. Emma moved closer to him, trying to do the same over his shoulder, but John changed position, blocking Emma’s sightline. She simply sighed and relaxed back into her seat, waiting until he was finished like Sam and Dean.

“ ‘If you’re reading this, I’m already dead’,” John began to read, going quiet after the first line and reading to himself. “That son of a bitch.”

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“He had it the whole time,” John said, ignoring Emma’s question.

“John, what?” Emma tried to ask again.

“When you searched the place, did you see a gun?” John said, again ignoring Emma’s question and starting one of his own. “An antique, a Colt revolver, did you see it?”

“Uh, there was an old case, but it was empty,” Dean told him.

“They have it,” John said, more to himself then anything.

“You mean, whatever killed Elkins?” Dean asked.

“We’ve got to pick up the trail,” John said as he jumped out of the car, still not giving the trio any answers.

“Wait,” Sam called out to him, making John stop and look through the car window at them. “You want us to come with you?”

“If Elkins was tellin’ the truth, we’ve got to find this gun,” John told them.

“The gun? Why?” Sam asked.

“Because it’s important, that’s why,” John replied simply.

“John, we don’t even know what these things are yet,” Emma said, his purposefully unhelpful andswers beginning to get to her.

“They were what Daniel Elkins killed best,” John told them. “Vampires.”

“Vampires?” Dean repeated. “I thought there was no such thing.”

“You never even mentioned them, Dad,” Sam said.

“I thought they were extinct. I thought Elkins and others had wiped ‘em out. I was wrong,” John said as he began telling them just what he knew. “Most vampire lore is crap. A cross won’t repel them, sunlight won’t kill them, and neither will a stake to the heart. But the bloodlust, that part’s true. They need fresh human blood to survive. They were once people, so you won’t know it’s a vampire until it’s too late.”

@~~>~~~

Tucked into the woods beside the highway, the small group of vampires that had attacked Elkins were proving John’s point. They were all sitting or standing round a parked car, drinking and laughing. If you didn’t know any better, you would just simply thing they were a group of humans on a rowdy night out.

Out on the highway, a car was driving their way, a mile or so away from passing by the woods. With a wicked smile on her face, the lead vampire, Kate, turned to one of her others.

“All yours, baby,” she told the guy, watching him smile just as wickedly as he headed out onto the highway.

Out in that car, a young couple were driving down the highway, the young woman’s eyes flicking back and to between her boyfriend in the seat beside her, chuckling softly.

“What?” the man asked her.

“Well, I guess you showed that guy,” she said to him, her chuckle turning into an outright laugh.

“What guy?” he asked, confused.

“The guy who bet you you wouldn’t buy that shirt,” she told him.

“I love this shirt,” he said to her, making his girlfriend laugh even more. Rolling her eyes away from him, the woman’s attention was drawn to the road in front of them, finding what appeared to be a dead body lying in the middle of the highway.

“Look out!” the woman called to him, making him slam on his brakes. “What happened to him?”

“Call 911,” he told her as he got out of his car, crouching down beside him as his girlfriend did as he asked. Kneeling, he now found himself looking into the eyes of the male vampire, eyes flashing devilishly as a set of fangs descended from his gums. An air splitting scream pierced the air as the vampire leapt forward, attaching himself to the guys neck as his fangs sank deep.

@~~>~~~

If you were to continuing following that highway, you would not too soon find yourself a one of the local motels, where in one room, Sam, Den and Emma were sleeping peacefully. John, however, was still wide awake, listening to police talk over a walkie-talkie. And whatever he heard clearly got his attention as he jumped from the bed, heading towards SAM, Dean and Emma’s sleeping forms.

“Sam, Dean, Emma, let’s go,” he said, shaking them awake. “Picked up a police call.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“A couple called 911,” John told them. “They found a body in the street. Cops got there, everyone was missing. It’s the vampires.”

“How do you know?” Emma asked him.

“Just follow me, okay?” John said, leaving without giving them a clear answer as they were pretty much used to by now.

“Vampires,” Dean muttered to himself as they all got ready to leave. “Gets funnier every time I hear it.”

@~~>~~~

On that once deserted highway, now crowded with cop cars and ambulances, Sam, Dean and Emma stood in wait by the car while John stood a few feet away, talking with the cops.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t have gone over with him,” Emma mumbled, half below her breath but enough for the brother’s to hear her.

“Oh, don’t tell me it’s already starting,” Dean mumbled back.

“What’s starting?” Sam and Emma asked in unison, Dean not having chance to answer them as John walked back over their way.

“What do you got?” Dean asked his father.

“It was them, all right,” John said. “Looks like they’re headin’ west. We’re gonna have to double back to get around that detour.”

“How can you be so sure?” Emma had to ask.

“Em….” Dean began to stop hr.

“I just wanna know we’re goin’ in the right direction,” Emma said.

“We are,” John said simply.

“How do you know?” Emma repeated.

“I found this,” John said, pulling something from his pocket that Dean took from him.

“It’s a vampire fang,” Dean said, turning it over in his hand.

“No fangs, teeth,” he told them. “The second set descends when they attack.” With that, he turned his attention to Emma.

“Any more questions?” he asked her. Emma said nothing, she simply lowered her gaze and let him continue. “All right, let’s get out of here, we’re losin’ daylight. Hey, Dean, why don’t you touch up your car before you get rust? I wouldn’t have given you the damn thing if I thought you were gonna ruin it.”

Spiel over, John climbed inside his own truck, leaving Dean staring dumbfounded after him and Sam and Emma trying their best not to laugh.

@~~>~~~

Following the directions John was taking them in, Sam, Dean and Emma drove down the road, Emma behind the wheel while Dean was going over research they had acquired on vampires. 

“Vampires nest in groups of eight to ten,” Dean read off. “Smaller packs are sent out to hunt for food. Victims are taken to the nest, where the pack keeps them alive, bleeding them for days or weeks. I wonder if that’s what happened to that 911 couple.”

“That’s probably what Dad’s thinking,” Sam said.

“Of course, it would be nice if he just told us what he thinks,” Emma added in. It actually took Sam a minute to realise that had come out of Emma’s mouth and not his.

“So, it is starting,” Dean grumbled.

“What?” Emma questioned him.

“Yeah, what?” Sam asked his brother, totally out of the loop on this one.

“You think you and dad argue,” Dean said, turning to his brother. “You wanna see what happens when you leave him and Emma in a room alone together.”

“Come on, that’s not….” Emma tried to defend herself.

“Em,” Dean interrupted, before she could go on with any excuses. “We’ve been lookin’ for Dad all year. Now we’re not with him for more than a couple of hours, and there’s static already?”

“No,” Emma argued back. “Look, I’m happy he’s okay, all right? And I’m happy that we’re all workin’ together again.”

“Good,” Dean said, thinking that was it, this was over. But, after all, this was Emma he was talking to.

“It’s just the way he treats us like we’re children,” Emma continued, going totally off her stride from earlier.

“Oh, God,” Dean grumbled, rolling his eyes but still managing to keep them on the road.

“He barks orders at us, Dean,” Emma continued. “He expects us to follow him without question. He keeps us on some crap need-to-know deal.”

“I gotta agree with her,” Sam said with a wry smile.

“You would,” Dean grumbled to his brother before turning to his girlfriend. “He does what he does for a reason.”

“What reason?” Emma asked.

“Our job!” Dean cried out. “There’s no time to argue, there’s no margin for error, all right, it’s just the way the old man runs….”

“Yeah, well, maybe that worked when we were kids, but not anymore, all right?” Emma yelled right back. “Not after everything you and I have been through, Dean. I mean, are you tellin’ me you’re cool with just fallin’ into line and lettin’ him run the whole show?”

For a moment, Dean remained quiet, his eyes glued to the research in his hand more intensely then he ever had. And for that moment, Emma knew she shouldn’t, but part of her hoped. Hoped that maybe Dean might get a little sense, actually listen to her, hear what she was saying.

“If that’s what it takes,” Den said finally.

Emma rolled her eyes in anger, that hope disappearing instantly.

@~~>~~~

After their incident on the highway, the vampire troop had taken their latest victims back to their hideout. Chaining them to a post, the vampires made the couple watch as they partied, drank and pretty much enjoyed themselves. Beer bottle in hand, the vampire who had laid the trap for them swaggered their way, kneeling in front of them.

“Have some beer, buddy,” he told the man. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

“No, thanks,” the guy muttered, turning away from him.

“Oh, come on,” the vampire grumbled. “You drink enough, I can taste it in your blood.”

“That’s gross,” Kate laughed out as she walked past them. No look on their male hostage, the vampire, Bo, now decided to turn his attention the female one.

“How ‘bout you, babe?” he said, gently bringing the bottle to her lips. When she didn’t protest, Bo, tipped the bottle back a bit, letting the beer drip into the woman’s mouth as ate watched with a smile. “ ‘Atta girl.”

When he pulled the bottle away from her lips though, his elation faded quickly. The young woman hadn’t swallowed the beer, simply held it in her mouth and now spit it back out right into Bo’s face. Wiping away the remnants of beer that were left dripping off his face, Bo made a launch at the young woman, hand rose high to backhand her heavily as his demonic anger took over.

“Bo!” Kate called across the room, making Bo halt mid swing with perfect reflexes. “Wait for Luther.”

As if on cue, the barn doors swung open wide and Luther strode through, their leader gaining every one of their attentions, even the humans. With a wide smile, Kate leapt across the room at his entry, jumping up into his arms and kissing him passionately.

“I missed you, too, baby,” Luther said with a smile of his own as they pulled apart.

“We’ve got presents,” Kate said gleefully, taking Luther’s hand and leading them to their hostages. Luther inspected them, the woman first, stroking a hand down her cheek.

“She looks interesting,” Luther noted before turning his attention over to the guy. “He doesn’t. Lock him up.” On command, Bo untied him from the pole, lifting him heavily to his feet, stopping at Luther’s voice.

“On second thought, go ahead and treat yourselves.”

Much happier to go with that command, Bo turned his direction, dragging the men across the table to the group of vampires where they all dug in, attacking him like he was a starving man’s feast, ignoring the screams coming both from the dying man, and his girlfriend chained to the post, forced to watch the whole ordeal.

“There’s something else,” Kate told Luther, pulling him away from what they saw as the normal occurrence behind them and to the table where she had lay out an array of money and valuables they had retrieved lately.

“This all theirs?” Luther asked.

“No,” Kate said. “It’s from an old friend of yours, Daniel Elkins. I caught his set, and I thought I’d surprise you.”

“Kate, what did you do?” Luther asked nervously.

“I made him suffer,” Kate said with a proud smile.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Luther groaned out, exasperated.

“Luther….” Kate tried helplessly to apologise.

“There are others like him,” Luther told her. “They’ll know the signs and come lookin’ for us. We have to be careful.”

“Luther, I did it for you,” Kate told him. “For what he did to your family.”

“Revenge isn’t worth much if you end up dead,” Luther said.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry,” Kate said softly, trying to appease him. Stepping closer to the table, Luther picked up the Colt that Daniel had aimed at Kate. “I thought you might like that. It looks like it was made around the time you were born.”

“I’ve seen this before,” Luther said absently, still gazing down at the gun in his hands.

“Elkins died with it in his hands,” Kate said, her smile back. “He should’ve known better, using a gun.”

“This is no ordinary gun,” Luther announced softly.

@~~>~~~

Still on the road and Emma still behind the wheel, the trio were still driving, Dean having put down the research once it turned dark to now be on the phone with his father in the car in front of them.

“Yeah, Dad. All right, got it,” Dean said as he hung up his cell. “Pull off at the next exit.”

“Why?” Emma asked.

“Because Dad thinks we’ve got the vampires’ trail,” Dean told her.

“How?” Emma asked, getting more annoyed with each none answer she got.

“I don’t know, he didn’t say,” Dean said simply. And Emma hit breaking point.

Stepping on the gas, Emma picked up the speed, shocking a compliant Sam and Dean as the car zipped past John’s truck, cutting him off as she skidded to a halt in front of him, causing John to slam on his breaks. Before the Impala had even pulled to a proper stop, Emma had swung the car door open and jumped out.

“Oh, crap. Here we go,” Dean said, following Emma out of the car.

“What?” Sam asked, hopping out last.

“You’re about to see first hand just what I was talking about earlier. Emma!” Dean called, him and Sam following over to where Emma and John were steadily approaching each other.

“What the hell was that?” John asked as they got face to face.

“We need to talk,” Emma told him.

“About what?” John asked.

“About everything,” Emma replied. “Where we goin’, John? What’s the big deal about this gun?”

“Babe, come on,” Dean said, speaking softly to calm his girlfriends, their roles suddenly reversed in their relationship for the first time. “We can Q and A after we kill all the vampires.”

“Dean’s right,” John said, his tone not so calm. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Last time we saw you, you said it was too dangerous to be together,” Emma continued, ignoring the interruptions. “Now, out of the blue, you need our help. Now, obviously, something big is goin’ down, and we wanna know what!”

“Get back in the car,” John told her.

“No,” Emma stated simply.

“I said get back in the damn car,” John repeated, taking a step up into Emma’s face.

“Yeah. And I said no,” Emma said, stepping right back up at him.

“All right, you made your point, tough gal,” Dean said, now trying to almost physically pull Emma away.

“Look, we’re all tired,” Sam said, stepping in to take the calm approach this time. “We can talk about this later.”

“Emma, I mean it, come on,” Dean said, again taking the forceful approach as he pushed her back towards the car.

“This is just the reason I wanted to leave,” Emma muttered under her breath as they made their way back.

“What’d you say?” John asked, making Emma turn to him again.

“You heard me,” Emma said.

“Yeah. You were,” John began to yell at her. “Sam left, and you were steps from doing the same, just when me and your boyfriend, we needed you. You wanted to turn your back on us!” On his last statement, John took the next step forward, grabbing Emma’s jacket collar. Even now he was treating her like he owned. He wasn’t grabbing her half as hard as he would one of his own boys, she could feel that, but the mere gesture alone was him trying to assert his dominance over her that he expected to have.

“Stop it, both of you!” Dean said, coming to his girlfriend’s rescue, but there was no need. Before Dean could even touch either of them, Emma had done the work, shoving John off and away from her.

“Yeah, and the way I remember it, that was entirely your fault!” Emma yelled back at him. “You and your over-bearing, over-controlling self! You were just pissed off you couldn’t control like you did them!”

“All right, stop it, stop it,” Sam said, grabbing a hold of Emma.

“Stop it, that’s enough!” Dean said, taking his father, him and his brother tearing the two apart. Pulling away from their respects holders, Emma and John stormed off in two different directions, each to the car they were riding in.

“Terrific,” Dean mumbled, looking over at Sam whose eyes were flicking between Emma and John. “See what I mean?”

“Errr… yeah,” Sam said, following his brother into the car. He hadn’t ever known anyone but him go at his father like that, and it helped somewhat to know that out of all of this somewhat dysfunctional family the four of them seemed to have, he wasn’t exactly the only odd one out.

@~~>~~~

At the same time, at the vampire’s nest, most all the vampires were asleep. All apart from Kate, Luther, and the young woman who was still tied to the post, too scared to close her eyes for even a second. Instead, in front of her, she could see Kate and Luther going at it hot and heavy on the counter, tearing at each other’s flesh and clothes.

With Luther’s mouth nuzzled into her neck, Kate gazed over his shoulder as she gasped for breath, catching the young woman’s eyes for the second she was still watching them before turning away. Luther noticed his distracted woman and turned himself, seeing just where she was looking.

“You like to watch, huh? Me, too,” Luther said, turning to Kate. “Ready, baby?” Kate answer was a sound kiss firmly on his lips before sliding off his lap and moving over to the woman, stroking a hand almost seductively through her hair.

“Are you gonna kill me?” the woman said gently through tears she hadn’t stopped crying all day.

“I’m gonna take you so high, you’re never gonna come down.”

Holding her arm out to Luther behind her, Kate just smiled as he drew a knife across her arm, watching as the blood flowed to the surface. Sucking the blood from her own arm, Kate then knelt to clamp her mouth over the other woman’s, sharing the blood with a deep kiss.

Luther watched them from above with a satisfied smile, his hand stroking through both woman’s hair.

“Welcome home, baby.”

@~~>~~~

Next morning, and the only missing vampire, Bo, pulled up outside the nest, stepping out of the car into the bright sunlight, shielding nothing but his eyes as he strolled across to the door Luther was holding open for him.

“I know what time it is,” Bo said as he walked past the leader.

“Get in,” Luther said simply, motioning him inside before doing a quick scan of the area and following him. In his scan, what he failed to notice was Sam, Dean, Emma and John lying hidden in the trees, watching them.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean grumbled. “So, they’re really not afraid of the sun?”

“No, direct sunlight hurts like a nasty sunburn,” John told them. “The only way to kill them is by beheading. And, yeah, they sleep during the day. It doesn’t mean they won’t wake up.”

“So I guess walking right in’s not our best option,” Dean stated.

“Actually, that’s the plan,” John told him, stepping out of the trees and over to his truck. Sam, Dean and Emma followed, only they stopped near the Impala, opening up the false boot.

“Dad, I got an extra machete if you need one,” Dean told him, pulling it out from his trunk. Turning however, he found it was needed, as John was now stood in front of much more sophisticated hidden weapons case with a lot more upgraded weapons.

“Think I’m okay. Thanks,” John told them as he pulled out one of his own.

“Wow,” Dean mumbled, going back to Sam and Emma as they went about getting their own weapons.

“So… you three really wanna know about this Colt?”

Not expecting a question like that from John, it took the three of them a moment to stop what they were doing and turn to him.

“Yes,” Emma said, the only one, after last night, willing to really say anything to him.

“It’s just a story, a legend, really,” John began to explain to them. “Well, I thought it was. Never really believed it until I read Daniel’s letter. Back in 1835, when Halley’s Comet was overhead, the same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun, a special gun. He made it for a hunter, a man like us, only on horseback. The story goes he made thirteen bullets. This hunter used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. Somehow, Daniel got his hands on it. They say… they say this gun can kill anything.”

“Kill anything, like supernatural anything?” Dean asked.

“Like the demon,” Sam said, realisation dawning.

“Yeah, the demon,” John clarified for them. “Ever since I picked up its trail, I’ve been lookin’ for a way to destroy that thing. Find the gun… we may have it.”

@~~>~~~

Making their way into the building with all the years of stealth training behind them, Sam, Dean and Emma crept in through the open window, gently closing it behind them. Inside they find a room strung with hammocks, each one holding a sleeping vampire. All that stealth used to gain access is quickly forgotten as Dean kicks over a bottle, jumping out of the way of the noise and directly into the hammock of the nearest sleeping vampire. Sam and Emma look up at him, waiting with baited breath for the attack, but the vampire continues to sleep.

Elsewhere in the building, John had made his way towards the private sleeping quarters that held Luther and Kate, dead to the world for the daylight hours. Not only that, but this room contain the Colt, slung over the bedpost on its holster. John creeps down the steps towards it, pausing only when Luther and Kate roll over in their sleep.

Stepping quietly once more, Sam, Dean and Emma’s search of the room brings them to the young woman Kate captured, tied to the post and asleep. Sam and Emma kneel behind her to undo the ropes while another sound close by draws Dean’s attention.

“There’s more,” he whispers, indicating to a cage full of captives. Leaving the first girl to Sam and Emma, Dean makes his way to the cage, grabbing a crowbar on the way to smash the lock, stopping on each swing to check around him for waking vampires.

As they work on untying her hands, the woman in front of Sam and Emma begins to wake, shifting slightly.

“Hey, hey, shhh,” Sam whispers to her. “I’m here to help you.”

This is clearly not what she wants to hear, as the scream that now escapes her lips is purely inhuman, the shriek of a newborn vampire. Sam and Emma back away quickly, Dean now with them, but it is too late. The vampires are already beginning to wake from their slumber, searching for the intruder.

The scream has also reached within the walls of the private room, waking Luther and Kate just as John’s hand closes round the Colt. His chance gone, John can now only hope for escape, picking up the nearest bottle and hurling it at the window, the glass shattering and letting in the bright midday sunlight.

“You three, run!” John calls out, hoping the others can hear him. They are already way ahead in their thinking, however, racing towards the window with the vampires close at their heels. They reach the woods once they realise they have not been followed out into the day.

“Dad?!” Dean screams back towards the building, all of them looking for the senior member of their group.

“Dad!” Sam repeats when they get no reply. Emma is about to add her voice to the mix when John appears in front of them slowing to a stop.

“They won’t follow,” John informs them as the three begin to run again. “They’ll wait ‘til tonight. Once a vampire gets your scent, it’s for life.”

“What the hell do we do now?” Emma asks.

“You got to find the nearest funeral home, that’s what,” John tells them, confusing the trio even more.

@~~>~~~

Back at the motel, it is now just John and Sam. Dean and Emma have left for the funeral home, on the errand for John. Still in case mode, John is deep in concentration on research in front of him while Sam pacing impatiently across the floor.

“It shouldn’t be taking this long,” Sam speaks up finally. “I should go help.”

“Dean and Emma have got it,” John simply says, not stopping his youngest sons impatient pacing. “Sammy….”

“Yeah?” Sam said, finally stopping his pacing to turn to his father.

“I don’t think I ever told you this, but….” John begins after a small pause. “The day you were born, you know what I did?”

“No,” Sam said, confused but still slightly intrigued.

“I put a hundred bucks into a savings account for you,” John tells him with a small smile. “I did the same thing for your brother. It was a college fund. And every month, I’d put in another hundred dollars, until…. Anyway, my point is, Sam, that… this is never the life that I wanted for you.”

“Then why’d you get so mad when I left?” Sam asked the obvious question, moving to sit across from his father.

“You got to understand something. After your mother passed, all I saw was evil, everywhere. And all I cared about was keeping you boys alive. I wanted you prepared, ready. So, somewhere along the line, I, uh… I stopped being your father. And I… I became your drill sergeant. So, when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was that you were gonna be alone, vulnerable. Sammy, it just… it never occurred to me what you wanted. I just couldn’t accept the fact that you and me… we’re just different.” Taking a breath, John is surprised when his speech earns himself a small laugh from Sam. “What?”

“We’re not different. Not anymore. With what happened to Mom and Jess… we probably have a lot more in common than just about anyone.”

“I guess you’re right, son.”

“Hey, Dad? Whatever happened to that college fund?”

“I spent it on ammo.”

They both laugh at this, at least for the moment going back to the father and son they were always meant to be, interrupted only as Dean and Emma walk through the door.

“Whew!” Emma exclaims, shutting the door behind them. “Man, there’s some heavy security to protect a bunch of dead guys.”

“Did you get it?” John asks. In answer, Dean pulls a bag from his pocket, pulling from the bag a jar of blood which he hands to his father with a smile. “You know what to do.”

@~~>~~~

With the sun long gone, darkness now blanketed across the sky, the Impala was parked at the side of the road, hood popped open and Emma buried beneath is, checking over a machine Dean had years ago taught her the exact workings off.

“Car trouble?” a voice behind her uttered, and Emma turned to see Bo stood behind her, smirking. “Let me give you a lift. I’ll take you back to my place.”

“Nah, I’ll pass,” Emma replied, smirking back. “I usually draw the line at necrophilia.”

“Ooh,” Bo said, her smirk turning to a full out grin as he backhanded Emma across the face, knocking her to her knees as Kate appears from behind him. Before Emma had a chance to stand up on her own, Bo grabs her by the cheeks, lifting her off the ground.

“Well, I don’t normally get this friendly ‘til the second date, but….” Emma continued to joke.

“You know, we could have some fun,” Bo told her. “I always like to make new friends.” With that, he pulled Emma closer to him, kissing her harshly on the lips.

“Sorry,” Emma muttered once he pulled away. “Already spoken for.”

And from out of the woods, two arrows come shooting through the air, each one striking their intended victims square in the chest. Bo drops Emma with the shock of the blow, Sam, Dean and John appearing from out of the trees.

“You ok?” Dean asked, stepping up beside Emma.

“Course,” Emma answered, taking his offered hand and pulling herself up.

“Damn it,” Kate ground out, drawing their attentions to her. “Barely even stings.”

“Give it time, sweetheart. That arrow’s soaked in dead man’s blood. It’s like poison to you, isn’t it?” John told her smugly, watching the smile fade from her lips as the poison took affect, knocking the vampire backwards into Dean’s waiting arms. “Load her up. I’ll take care of this one.”

They do just that, Dean carrying Kate away while Sam and Emma follow close behind. Alone in the woods, just John and an immobilised Bo, John raises his machete high, moonlight glinting off the sharp blade as he swings it down, blood splattering across the forest as Bo’s head rolls away from his body.

@~~>~~~

Deeper in the woods, in a natural clearing in the trees, Sam, Dean, Emma and John stand round an open fire, Kate tied to a tree beside them, unconscious, or at least in the stages of it.

“Toss this on the fire,” John said, handing over another item to Dean. 

“Saffron, skunks, cabbage, and trillium. It’ll block our scent and hers until we’re ready.”

“Stuff stinks,” Dean said, taking a step back as he dropped the last item onto the fire.

“Well, that’s the idea,” John told them. “Dust your clothes with the ashes, and you’ll stand a chance of not being detected.”

“You sure they’ll come after her?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” John said. “Vampires mate for life. She means more to the leader than the gun. But the blood sickness is gonna wear off soon. So you don’t have a lot of time.”

“Half-hour ought to do it,” Sam said.

“And then I want you out of the area as fast as you can,” John told them.

“But….” Emma began to argue.

“Dad, you can’t take care of them all yourself,” Dean calmly said to his father.

“I’ll have her and the Colt,” John reasoned.

“But after, we’re gonna meet up, right? Use the gun together, right?” Emma asked John, to which she got no answer. And that was all the answer she needed. “You’re leaving again, aren’t you? You still want to go after the demon alone? You know, I don’t get you. You can’t treat us like this.”

“Like what?” John asked.

“Like children,” Sam finished for Emma.

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” John told them simply.

“Dad, all due respect, but that’s a bunch of crap,” Dean added to the argument, earning himself a look of shock from everyone conscious within the clearing.

“Excuse me?” John said, not expecting to hear that from his oldest son.

“You know what Sammy, Emma and I have been huntin’,” Dean continued. “Hell, you sent us on a few huntin’ trips yourself. You can’t be that worried about keeping us safe.”

“Its not the same thing, Dean,” John tried to argue.

“Then what is it?” Dean asked. “Why do you want us out of the big fight?”

“This demon? Its a bad son of a bitch,” John said. “I can’t make the same moves if I’m worried about keeping you alive.”

“You mean you can’t be as reckless,” Dean clarified.

“Look….” John began solemnly. “I don’t expect to make it out of this fight in one piece. Your mother’s death… it almost killed me. I can’t watch you three die, too. I won’t.”

“What happens if you die? Dad, what happens if you die and we could have done somethin’ about it? You know, I’ve been thinkin’… I think maybe Emma’s right about this one. I think we should do this together,” Dean told his father, earning a nod of agreement and encouragement from both Sam and Emma. “We’re stronger as a family, Dad. We just are. You know it.”

“We’re running out of time. You do your job, and you get out of the area. That’s an order,” John said, walking away.

Conversation: over.

@~~>~~~

Back at their hide-out, Luther stood with a group of vampires, watching as Hank, another of his group, pulled up their car in front of him.

“Is there any sign of those four?” Luther asked the second her stepped from the vehicle.

“No, somethin’ else,” Hank answered.

“What?” Luther asked.

“Luther, they cut off Bo’s head,” Hank told him.

“And Kate?” Luther asked immediately.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t there. What are we gonna do?” Hank asked, panic clear in his voice. In the distance there is the sound of a truck driving across the highway. An everyday sound that right now has Luther’s undivided attention. “It’s just a truck up on the highway.”

“Kate,” Luther said simply. “She’s in that truck.”

And she is, for the truck Luther had heard was John’s, Kate barely conscious in the passenger seat beside him.

@~~>~~~

While Luther had pulled together a group of his best vampires, Hank had been left behind to keep guard unless any of the Winchesters decided to stop by for a visit.

Drink in hand, Hank cautiously looked round at a sound from the other room, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Turning to head back into the main room, Hank finds himself face to face with Dean and Emma, machete’s raised.

“Boo,” Dean deadpans, swiping the blade round and taking Hank’s head clean off. With their only obstacle out of the way, Dean and Emma move to the back of the room and the cage where the other prisoners are being held. “I told you I’d come back,” he said, smashing the lock.

@~~>~~~

With their job for the night done, Dean and Emma were back at the motel, waiting to hear from John. And neither was waiting patiently. Emma had been pacing the floor for so long, you could almost see the original colour of the carpet. And Dean was stood stiffly by the wall, glancing up at the clock every two minutes. 

“You know, maybe dad was right. Maybe it is better if we stay out of this,” Dean said, finally breaking the silence in the room. And after it came a short, humourless laugh from Emma.

“Oh, well that didn’t last too long, did it,” she muttered.

“What?” Dean asked.

“This new argue back attitude of yours,” Emma said, stopping her pacing right in front of Dean. “And to think I actually thought you might have changed after all these years.”

“Dad knows what he’s talking about, Em,” Dean said. “We’re his kids and he’s just looking out for him.”

“No, you’re his kids,” Emma corrected him. “I’m not, Dean.”

“Come on, you know he cares about you like he does me and Sam, you know he thinks of you as….”

“No, Dean, he doesn’t. I’m just the girl that’s sleeping with one of his sons. And that’s fine with me, because I’ve never had to pander to him like you seem to think you have to. Dean… you know you don’t have to. I thought you got that today… but I guess not.”

“Emma,” Dean began, stepping closer towards her. “I love you, you know that. And that happens to mean wanting to keep you in one, safe piece. Which sometimes might mean listening to my dad.”

“Dean, it’s vampires! You said it yourself, we’ve dealt with worse. For God’s sake, Dean, you just turn into the perfect little mindless soldier when your dad’s around. He say’s jump, you say how high!”

Her anger depleting slightly, Emma smirked as a thought occurred to her, slinking towards Dean who openly gulped as he watched her move, almost like a predator stalker it’s prey. And Dean wasn’t all that sure if he liked being prey right now.

“Do you wanna know what the first thing that made me fall in love with you was?

“What?”

“The wonderful little rebellious streak you have,” Emma told him, her arms slinking round his neck as she stood directly in front of him now, his arms taking up position on her hips. “The one that makes you turn your nose up at authority. The one that suddenly disappears every time you’re around your dad. I know you love him Dean, and we’ve been looking for him all this time… but there does come a time when little boys have to grow up and realise that their dads don’t always make the right choices or say the right things.”

“Yeah… but can that time be a while from now?” Dean joked with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood as always. But there was still a glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago, a glint that told Emma she might just be getting through to him.

Which was the only reason she gave in, laughing softly against Dean’s lips as he leant down to kiss her.

@~~>~~~

Up on the highway, John continued his journey with Kate in the seat beside him slowly begin to come back to reality. But as he turned the next corner, his journey was brought abruptly to a halt as he was meet by a road block that consisted of Luther and three other vampires stood in front of their cars, causing him to slam on his brakes.

“Get out!” Luther shouted, John doing as he was asked. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Winchester,” John answered him.

“Where are your friends?” Luther asked him.

“Cleanin’ out your nest,” John answered simply.

“Where’s Kate?” Luther asked.

“Come here, sweetheart,” John said, pulling on a length of rope and dragging Kate from the truck, hands bound. Bringing her closer to Luther, John held a knife at the young woman’s throat to keep the rest of the vampires at bay.

“Kate, you all right?” Luther asked her.

“Dead man’s blood,” Kate answered weakly.

“You son of a bitch,” Luther growled at John.

“We want the Colt, Elkins’ gun. Trade.”

“Is that what this is all about? I mean, you can’t shoot us all, right? We’ll kill you.”

“Oh, I don’t need it for you. I’m savin’ it for somethin’ else. Put the Colt down, or she goes first.”

“All right. Just don’t hurt her,” Luther said, taking out the Colt and placing it on the ground.

“Back up,” John said, Luther taking a few steps back. “Further.” He backs up further and John moves forward, kneeling down so Kate can pick up the gun.

“That’s a nice move,” Luther said with a smile. “You almost made it.”

Suddenly, the equilibrium changed. Kate, her strength back, hit John with the gun, sending him into his truck and the gun flying across the ground. Luther joins her, hitting John so hard he careens back into the door of his truck, slumping to the ground like a dead weight.

Before the vampires have time to gloat over their win, an arrow flies from the cover of the woods, slicing through the back of a vampire. Turning at the sound, Luther watches as Sam, Dean and Emma rush out from the woods, taking out another vampires with an arrow as they run. Pissed and at breaking point, Luther storms forward, hitting the first enemy he comes to, Sam, and knocking him to the ground. Lifting him by the throat, Luther’s attention is brought to Dean and Emma heading his way, weapons in hand.

“Don’t! I’ll break his neck. Put the blade down,” Luther screams at them. The pair freeze, Emma’s nudge and desperate look at a choking Sam making Dean drop his blade. “You people… why can’t you just leave us alone? We have as much right to live as you do.”

“I don’t think so.”

Sam still in hand, Luther turns to see John on his feet, Colt aimed high. Without a seconds pause, John squeezes the trigger, shooting Luther direct in the middle of his forehead. Weakened, Luther drops Sam, who stumbles back into Emma waiting hold, a trickle of blood running down his nose as he sinks to his knees.

“Luther!” Kate calls desperately, her and the other vampires only able to watch as a flash of bright white light streaks through Luther’s body before her falls limp to the floor, dead. Overcome by anger, Kate makes forward towards John, only to be held back by another female vampire.

“Kate, don’t!” she cries, pulling her back towards the cars. Sam, Dean, Emma and John watch as, throwing angry glares their way, the vampires finally retreat, tires kidding as they pull out.

@~~>~~~

Mission completed, Sam, Dean and Emma finish their day with packing, their duffles half full as John steps into the room.

“So, guys….” John begins, the other three stopping what they are doing to turn his way.

“Yes, sir?” Sam answers automatically.

“You ignored a direct order back there,” John tells them.

“Yes, sir,” Sam repeats.

“But we saved your ass,” Emma finishes for him.

“You’re right,” John says simply.

“I am?” Emma said, completely shocked.

“It scares the hell out of me,” John continues. “You three are all I’ve got. But I guess we are stronger as a family. So, we go after this damn thing… together.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam and Dean reply with a smile. John turns to look at Emma, the one who didn’t answer, ready for some other kind of argument.

“Yes….” She begins, smiling cheekily as the last word now tumbles easily from her lips.

“Sir.”


	21. Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SYNOPSIS  
> Meg turns to killing John's friends in order to get the Colt. Sam, Dean and Emma stakeout the Demon's next target, a family with a six month old baby showing signs of special abilities. John heads off alone to confront Meg.

In a small church in a small Minnesota town, Pastor Jim stood at his alter within his safe place. He had true faith, something so few people possessed these days, and he knew deep within his soul that within these walls, nothing could harm him.

A gust of wind signalled the opening of the church doors and Jim looked up as a young blonde girl, clearly distraught, entered this safe haven.

Meg.

“Good morning. Can I help you?” Jim asked, seeing nothing but the sweet, innocent girl that she appeared to be.

“I kind of… I need to talk,” Meg muttered, sitting at the pews.

“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Jim said, walking over to her.

“I’ve done some things… not good things,” Meg began.

“Well, there’s always forgiveness for us if we seek it,” Jim encouraged her on.

“For everyone? Are you sure?”

“I like to say salvation was created for sinners. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Well, I’ve lied… a lot. I’ve stolen. I’ve lusted. And the other day, I met this man. A nice guy, you know? And we had a really good chat. sort of like this. Then I slit his throat and ripped his heart out through his chest.”

Jim’s face turned from concerned to puzzled… until Meg looked up at him, her eyes black as coal.

“Does that make me a bad person?” Meg said, just as sweetly as before.

“I know what you are,” Jim said through his shock, backing away from her as she blinks, her eyes turning back to that of the home town girl her body was. “You can’t be here. This is hallowed ground.”

“Please,” Meg said, standing up. “Maybe that works in the minor leagues, but not with me.”

The sanctity of his ‘safe place’ now crumbling before his very eyes, Jim ran for his life, down a flight of stairs that led him into the basement, closing the solid doors behind him.

Meg didn’t run. Meg just walked calmly across the room, letting him close that door. Because with one hard kick, the door practically splintered beneath her feet… just in time for her to catch the knife that Jim threw at her.

“You throw like a girl,” Meg quips simply.

“What do you want?” Jim asked, backing himself into a corner.

“The Winchesters,” Meg answered simply.

“I haven’t spoken to John Winchester in over a year,” Jim said, bargaining for his life at this point. “You’re wasting your time. Even if I did know where they were, I’d never tell you.”

“I know.”

With a slash of the knife Jim would have used for protection, Meg slits his throat, walking away with a grin as she lets the dear friend of John Winchester slowly choke to death on his own blood.

@~~>~~~

Across the state, in Manning, Colorado, the hunters in question are holed up in a motel room. Now that John has officially let Sam, Dean and Emma be part of his team, his years of research in the form of maps, newspapers articles, books and photograph are strewn across every available surface, walls included. In the middle of this, John is sat at the table, the three eager young hunters stood in front of him, listening as he speaks.

“So, this is it,” John told them. “This is everything I know. Look, our whole lives we’ve been searching for this demon, right? And not a trace, just nothing… until about a year ago. For the first time, I picked up a trail.”

“That’s when you took off,” Emma piped up.

“Yeah, that’s right,” John answered her. “The demon must have come out of hiding or hibernation.”

“All right, so, what’s this trail you found?” Dean asked, getting back on topic.

“It starts in Arizona, then New Jersey, California,” John spieled off. “Houses are burning down to the ground. It’s going after families, just like it went after us.”

“Families with infants?” Sam clarified.

“Yeah, the night of the kid’s six-month birthday,” John told him.

“I was six months old that night?” Sam clarified again, this time for his own benefit.

“Exactly six months,” John told him again.

“So, basically, this demon is goin’ after these kids for some reason, the same way it came for me?” Sam said, almost speaking to himself now. “So, Mom’s death, Jessica… it’s all ‘cause of me?”

“We don’t know that, Sam,” Emma immediately said to him.

“Oh, really, ‘cause I’d say we’re pretty damn sure, Em,” Sam argued back.

“For the last time, what happened to them is not your fault,” Dean said, coming down strongly on his girlfriend’s side.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s not my fault, but it’s my problem!” Sam continued to argue.

“No, it’s not your problem, it’s our problem!” Emma tried to still in him once again.

“Okay. That’s enough,” John said, getting to his feet as h became the peacemaker, knocking the three of them silent.

“So, why is it doing it?” Sam spoke into the silence, needing answers. “What does it want?”

“Look, I wish I had more answers,” John said, as softly as he could. “I do. I’ve always been one step behind it. Look, I’ve never gotten there in time to save….”

“All right,” Dean said, hearing his father’s voice trail off. “So, how do we find it before it hits again?”

“There’s signs,” John told them. “Look, it took me a while to see the pattern, but in the days before these fires, signs crop up in an area. Cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations, electrical storms. And then I went back and checked, and….”

“These things happened in Lawrence,” Dean finished for him.

“The week before your mother died,” John said with a nod before turning to Sam. “And in Palo Alto… before Jessica. And these signs, they’re starting again.”

“Where?” Sam asked.

“Salvation, Iowa.”

@~~>~~~

Making their way down the road to Salvation, hopefully in more ways than one, the four were in two separate cars, spilt back into their original hunting parties.

Only moments after passing the ‘Welcome to Salvation’ sigh, John’s car turned off the road, parking in a dirt lay-by. Sam, Dean and Emma followed, all passengers stepping out of their cars.

“Damn it,” John uttered, slamming his fists against the roof of his truck.

“What is it?” Dean asked him.

“Son of a bitch!” John continued to curse, ignoring the three.

“What is it?” Emma tried again when Dean got no reply.

“I just got a call from Caleb,” John finally answered.

“Is he okay?” Emma asked, remembering John’s long time friend who her, Sam and Dean had occasionally spent time with when they were too young to go along on a hunt.

“He’s fine,” John told her. “Jim Murphy is dead.”

“Pastor Jim?” Sam said, receiving a nod off John. “How?”

“Throat was slashed, he bled out,” John told them, the trio now too stunned to ask anything else. “Caleb said they found traces of sulfur at Jim’s place.”

“The demon,” Dean said, getting a light nod and a look from John. “The demon?”

“I don’t know,” John said with a slight sigh. “Could be he just got careless, he slipped up. Maybe the demon knows we’re gettin’ close.”

“What do you want to do?” Emma asked the obvious question.

“Now we act like every second counts,” John told them. “There’s two hospitals and a health centre in this county. We split up, we cover more ground. I want records. I want a list of every infant that’s gonna be six months old in the next week.”

“Dad, that could be dozens of kids. How the hell are we gonna know which one’s the right one?” Sam asked.

“We’ll check ‘em all, that’s how,” John said, as if the answer was so simple. “You got any better ideas?”

“No, sir,” Sam answered after a pause, him and Dean moving to get back into the car. Before climbing back into her seat in the Impala, Emma looked up to see John still leaning against his truck, his eye-line off as he was lost in his own mind.

“John?” Emma spoke softly, waiting a moment before John turned his attention to her.

“Yeah… it’s Jim. You know, I can’t….” he trailed off, his voice more determined when he spoke again. “This ends. Now. I’m ending it. I don’t care what it takes.”

@~~>~~~

Going there separate ways to look for the names, Sam, Dean, Emma and John took their own hospitals and their own ways of getting inside.

Outside of Salvation Women and Children’s Hospital, John sat in his truck, refilling through his ID’s before finding the one he wanted, an ID for a hospital staff.

In the next hospital, Salvation Iowa Medical Centre, Sam is sat at a table, looking through a pile of files while a receptionist brings him even more to look through.

“Here you go, Officer,” the receptionist said with a sweet smile.

“Thank you,” Sam replied as she walked away, going back to the files in front of him.

In the final hospital, Salvation Hospital, Dean and Emma walk in, Dean’s eye immediately going to the attractive brunette behind the front desk. Dean walks over to her with his usual swagger, Emma content to just stand back and watch him… for the moment.

“Hi. Is there anything I can do for you?” the woman asks.

“Oh, God, yes,” Dean replied, the girl giving off that stupid, tinkling laugh the Emma just couldn’t stand. Without saying a word, Emma stepped up to Dean, making sure her presence was known. Feeling her staring him down, Dean cleared his throat, taking out his police badge. “Only I, uh… I’m working right now, so….”

Giving Dean a soft smile, the nurse walked away to get them the help they needed. On their own now, Dean turned his attention to Emma, an apologetic smile gracing his features. Emma just stares back, hands on her hips, and a crooked little smile twisting up the corner of her mouth.

“One day, that look is gonna stop working, Dean.”

@~~>~~~

Back at Salvation Iowa Medical Centre, Sam has the information he needs and is on his way back to meet the group at the motel. Just as his feet step up onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, Sam’s head splits apart in pain, images flashing behind his eyes in quick succession.

He sees a mother placing an infant into her crib. With another flash of pain also comes the images of that same woman opening that bedroom door to see a man standing over her baby, the noise from a passing train outside the window.

Taking deep breath as the visions and the pain stopped, Sam stood straight, pulling a map out of his bag.

“Train….” he muttered to himself, seeing that he was right. A train-line passed right beside the street that housed one of the kids on his list.

@~~>~~~

Following the direction on the map, Sam found himself outside of the house he had seen moments ago in his vision. And the mother and child he had seen were walking in front of it, the new woman struggling to juggle pushing the baby carriage while at the same time pulling down the umbrella.

Without any further thought, Sam crossed the road to her.

“Hi. Here, let me hold that. You don’t need that anymore,” Sam said, playing the helpful stranger as he placed his hand on the baby carriage.

“Thanks,” the woman said with a small laugh, clasping shut her umbrella.

“She’s gorgeous,” Sam said, looking down into the crib. “Is she yours?”

“Yeah,” the woman replied with a soft smile down at her young daughter.

“Oh, wow,” he said, giving a small laugh as he looked back up at the woman holding the baby carrier, holding out his hand for her to take. “I’m sorry, I’m rude. I’m Sam. I just moved in up the block.”

“Oh, hey, I’m Monica,” she told him. “This is Rosie.”

“Rosie? Hi, Rosie,” Sam said to the young child.

“So, welcome to the neighbourhood.”

“Thank you. She’s such a good baby.”

“I know. I mean, she never cries. She just stares at everybody. Sometimes she looks at you, and I swear, it’s like she’s reading your mind.”

“What about you, Monica? Have you lived here long?”

“My husband and I, we bought our place just before Rosie was born.”

“How old is Rosie?”

“She’s six months today,” Monica answered, a stunned look crossing Sam’s features. “It’s big, right? Growin’ like a weed.”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a half-hearted smile, clearly confusing Monica more and more by the moment. “Monica?”

“Yeah?” Monica said, staring up at Sam as he looked down at her with a sad smile, pausing as he thought what to say next.

“Just take care of yourself, okay?” Sam eventually said.

“Yeah. You, too, Sam. We’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

He watched as, with a smile back at him, Monica walked away with Rosie towards a car pulling up into their driveway, a man, clearly Monica’s husband, stepping out of it. As Sam watched from across the street, pain flashed behind Sam’s eyes as another vision played in his mind.

He watched the scene play out in full this time as the clock on the wall of Rosie’s wall stopped, while the mobile above the bed began moving on its own. Sam watched as a shadow of a man moved into the room, stopping over Rosie’s crib. Dressed in a white nightgown, Monica walked in behind him, staring at the unknown intruder into her daughter’s room.

“What are you….?” The demon looked back at her, his eyes flashing, and MONICA is thrown back against the wall, pinned as her body slid up to the ceiling. “Rosie! Rosie!”

The demon ignored the cries of the young mother, his eyes still glued to her body as a pool of blood appeared on her waist, the woman crying out to her baby daughter one last time before she burst into flames.

@~~>~~~

Back at the motel, Sam had found the other three already there and he had relayed to them what had just happened to him. And now his part was done, Sam just wanted to down a couple of hundred aspirin’s and get rid of his killer headache. Being the ever sympathetic ‘big sister’ that she was to Sam, Emma was sat beside him, her arm round his shoulder as her hand massaged his hair, while Dean and John watched from their spot across the room.

“A vision?” John repeated, still clearly not grasping this part of the whole thing.

“Yes,” Sam clarified again. “I saw the demon burning a woman on the ceiling.”

“And you think its gonna happen to this woman you met because….?” John asked.

“Because these things happen exactly the way I see them,” Sam said simply.

“It started out as nightmares,” Dean added, walking across the room to where Sam and Emma were. “And then he started havin’ them when he was awake.”

“Yeah,” Sam continued. “It’s like the closer I get to anything involving the demon, the stronger the visions get.”

“All right, when were you gonna tell me about this?” John asked, his anger levels rising slowly.

“We didn’t know what it meant,” Emma piped up.

“All right,” John said. “Something like this starts happening to your brother, you pick up the phone, and you call me.”

“Call you? Are you kiddin’ me?” Emma remarked as Dean headed over to his father.

“Dad, I called you from Lawrence, all right?” Dean said. “Sam called you when I was dying. Gettin’ you on the phone… I’ve got a better chance of winnin’ the lottery.”

“You’re right. Although I’m not real crazy about this new tone of yours, you’re right. I’m sorry,” John said, making Emma smile behind their backs.

“Look, guys,” Sam said, getting them back on topic. “Visions or no visions, the fact is, we know the demon is coming tonight. And this family’s gonna go through the same hell that we went through.”

“No, they’re not. No one is, ever again,” John said as Sam’s cell phone rang.

“Hello?” Sam said into the receiver.

“Sam?” a female voice trilled over the other end.

“Who is this?” Sam asked.

“Think real hard,” the voice said. “It’ll come to you.”

“Meg,” Sam said after a moment, the shock evident in his voice and on the faces of Dean, Emma and John. “Last time I saw you, you fell out of a window.”

“Yeah, thanks to you,” Meg said, the smirk on her face clear in her voice. “That really hurt my feelings, by the way.”

“Just your feelings? That was a seven-story drop.”

“Let me speak to your dad.”

“My dad… I don’t know where my dad is.”

“It’s time for the grown-ups to talk, Sam. Let me speak to him, now.”

Reluctantly, with no other way to go, Sam handed the phone over to John.

“This is John,” John spoke into the phone.

“Howdy, John. I’m Meg. I’m a friend of your boys and that little girl of theirs. I’m also the one who watched Jim Murphy choke on his own blood,” Meg said coldly, John taking in a much needed gulp of oxygen as he tried to stomp down his emotions. “Still there, John boy?”

“I’m here,” John said, his voice almost as emotionless as Meg’s.

“Well, that was yesterday,” Meg told him. “Today, I’m in Lincoln… visiting another old friend of yours. He wants to say hi.” Meg presses the phone to the ear of the guy tied in a chair next to her, removing his gag for a moment.)

“John, whatever they do, don’t give….” he began before Meg took the phone back.

“Caleb?” John cried into the phone out the sound of his friend’s voice, Sam, Dean and Emma’s worried faces turning to him as he spoke to Meg this time. “You listen to me. He’s got nothing to do with anything. You let him go.”

“We know you have the Colt, John,” Meg said simply.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John lied so easily.

“Oh. Okay. So, listen to this,” Meg said. Moving the phone away from her ear, she held it out towards Caleb as, with the same knife she got from Pastor Jim, she slashed across his throat, letting John hear as he gagged on his blood.

“Caleb? Caleb!” John screamed down the phone.

“Can you hear that?” Meg said, putting the phone back to her ear. “That’s the sound of your friend dying, now let’s try this again. We know you have the gun, John. Word travels fast. So, as far as we’re concerned, you just declared war. And this is what war looks like, it has casualties.”

“I’m gonna kill you, you know that?” John said, true venom in his voice.

“Oh, John, please. Mind your blood pressure,” Meg said, almost laughing at him. “So, this is the thing. We’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing, and your friends, anyone who has ever helped you, gave you shelter, anyone you ever loved… they’ll all die unless you give us that gun. I’m waiting, Johnny. Better answer before the buzzer.”

“Okay,” John said quietly.

“Sorry? I didn’t quite get that,” Meg said.

“I said okay. I’ll bring you the Colt.”

“There’s a warehouse in Lincoln, on the corner of Wabash and Lake. You’re gonna meet me there.”

“It’s gonna take me about a day’s drive to get there.”

“Meet me there at midnight tonight.”

“That’s impossible. I can’t get there in time, and I can’t just carry a gun on a plane.”

“Oh. Then I guess your friends die, don’t they? If you do decide to make it, come alone,” Meg said, slapping the phone shut. Turning, she gave Caleb’s dead body, eyes open and staring at her, a look of utter contempt. “What the hell are you lookin’ at?”

@~~>~~~

In their motel, Sam, Dean and Emma listened as John told them what had been said on the phone between him and Meg.

“So, you think Meg is a demon?” Sam said once he was finished.

“Either that or she’s possessed by one,” John answered. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“What do we do?” Dean asked.

“I’m going to Lincoln,” John told them.

“What?” Emma was the first to pipe up what all of them were thinking.

“It doesn’t seem like I have a choice,” John said. “If I don’t go, a lot of people die. Our friends die.”

“Dad, the demon is coming tonight for Monica and her family,” Sam reminded him. “That gun is all we’ve got. You can’t just hand it over.”

“Who said anything about handing it over?” John said, confusing Sam, Dean and Emma all the more. “Look, besides us and a couple vampires, no one’s really seen the gun. No one knows what it looks like.”

“So, what, you’re just gonna pick up a ringer at a pawn shop?” Dean said.

“Antique store,” John corrected him.

“You’re gonna hand Meg a fake gun and hope she doesn’t notice?” Emma said, not quite believing this plan just yet.

“Look, as long as it’s close, she shouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” John said, and it almost felt like he was trying to convince himself more than anything else on this.

“Yeah, but for how long?” Emma needed to know. “What happens when she figures it out?”

“I just… I just need to buy a few hours, that’s all,” John said, the finer points of the plan dropping into place for Sam, Dean and Emma now.

“You mean for Dean, Emma and me,” Sam said, only getting silence from John. “You want us to stay here… and kill this demon by ourselves?”

“No, Sam. I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I want Dean and Emma to have a proper life together,” John pleaded passionately, turning his back on them as tears sprang to his eyes. “I want Mary alive. I just… I just want this to be over.”

@~~>~~~

Having persuaded the other three to see his point of view, John was stood by his truck with Sam, waiting on Dean and Emma, who pulled up seconds later.

“Did you get it?” John asked. In answer, Emma pulls the fake gun her and Dean had just required in the antiques shopped, wrapped in paper, and handed it over to John.

“You know this is a trap, don’t you?” Emma pointed out bluntly. “That’s why Meg wants you to come alone.”

“I can handle her,” John reassured her. “I got a whole arsenal loaded, holy water, Mandaic amulets….”

“Dad,” Dean butt in.

“What?” John asked.

“Promise me something,” Dean told him.

“What’s that?” John asked.

“This thing goes south, just get the hell out,” Dean requested of him. “Don’t get yourself killed, all right? You’re no good to us dead

“Same goes for you. All right, listen to me.,” John said after a slight pause, pulling the real Colt from his coat pocket. “They made the bullets special for this Colt. There’s only four of ‘em left. Without ‘em, this gun is useless. You make every shot count.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said automatically.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this fight,” John sighed. “Now it’s here, and I’m not gonna be in it. It’s up to you boys now. It’s your fight. You finish this. You finish what I started. You understand?”

Each one of them nodded in unison, each of them having their own reasons for wanted this night over and done with as well. Making a swap, Dean handed the real Colt over to Dean.

“We’ll see you soon, Dad,” Sam said confidently.

“I’ll see you later,” John said with a smile and a nod, getting in his truck and driving off, Sam, Dean and Emma watching him leave in silence.

@~~>~~~

After hours of driving, John finally pulled up at a warehouse that was to be the location for this clandestine meeting between good and evil.

Stocked up with everything he could possible need, John cautiously entered the building, listening for any sound that might be out of the ordinary, and skulking around to put his exit plan into motion… just in case.

Reaching the roof, John found what he was looking for, the water tower, and climbed the ladder at the side. Opening up the hatch at the side, John dangled a set of rosary beads over the edge, saying a Latin prayer to bless the water.

Dropping the beads into the tank below, John closed the hatch and made his way back to the main area, ready for anything.

@~~>~~~

Back in Salvation, Sam, Dean and Emma were sat in the parked Impala, keeping watch on Monica’s house from across the seat.

“Maybe we can tell them there’s a gas leak,” Sam said, thinking up another idea on how to get the family out of the house to safety. “Might get ‘em out of the house for a few hours.”

“Yeah, and how many times has that actually worked for us?” Dean asked, Sam’s defeated silence enough of an answer.

“Could always tell ‘em the truth,” Sam said finally, gaining a look from Dean and Emma.

“Nah,” the couple in the front seat said in unison.

“I know, I know,” Sam sighed in agreeance. “I just… with what’s coming for these people….”

“Sam, we’ve only got one move, and you know it, all right?” Emma said softly, getting a nod from Sam. “We’ve got to wait for that demon to show itself, and then we get it before it gets them.

“I wonder how Dad’s doing.” Sam asked the car in general.

“I’d feel a lot better if we were there backin’ him up,” Dean said.

“I’d feel a lot better if he were here backin’ us up,” Emma made a correction to Dean’s comment, knocking the car into silence as they just continue to watch the house.

“This is weird,” Sam said after a moment, breaking the silence that had enveloped the car.

“What?” Dean asked.

“After all these years, we’re finally here. It doesn’t seem real.”

“We just got to keep our heads and do our job like always.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t like always.”

“True.”

“Dean, Emma, uh….” Sam stuttered out, Dean and Emma turning to him. “I wanna thank you.”

“For what?” Emma asked, coming back into the conversation.

“For everything,” Sam stated simply. “You guys have always had my back, you know? Even when I couldn’t count on anyone, I could always count on you two. And now… I don’t know, I just wanted to let you know… just in case….”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you kiddin’ me?” Emma interrupted him.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Don’t say, ‘Just in case somethin’ happens to you’, I don’t wanna hear that freakin’ speech,” Emma said indignantly.

“Nobody’s dyin’ tonight, bro,” Dean piped up onto Emma’s side. “Not us, not that family, nobody. Except that demon. That evil son of a bitch ain’t gettin’ any older than tonight, you understand me?”

Sam just nodded, going back to watching the house, and both Dean and Emma could really see that the nod he gave wasn’t fully wholeheartedly meant.

@~~>~~~

Across the country, the missing member of their group, John, walked into the warehouse to find Meg already there waiting for him.

“John, you made it,” Meg said overly cheery. “Too bad, really. I was hoping to kill more of your friends.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” John said in a monotone voice.

“I can see where your boys get their good looks. But I must admit, considering what they say about you, I thought you’d be… taller,” Meg said, failing to get a rise out John. “Well, aren’t you the chatty one? You wanna get to business? Fine. Why don’t you hand over the gun?”

“If I give you the gun, how do I get out of here?” John asked thobious question.

“Well, if you’re as good as they say you are, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

“Maybe I’ll just shoot you.”

“You wanna shoot me, baby? Go ahead. It won’t end anything. There’s more where I came from.”

At that moment, Meg’s statement was proven to the point as from within the shadows, a handsome young man, Meg’s accomplice Tom, stepped into the room.

“Who the hell’s that?” John asked.

“He’s not nearly as much fun as I am, I can tell you that. So, I suggest you give us the gun,” Meg said, but John didn’t move. “Now!” Giving up, John pulled the fake gun from his inside pocket, handing it to Meg for her to examine.

“This is the Colt?” Meg asked. John nods, and she hands the gun over to Tom. “What do you think?”

Tom takes it from her, examining it closely while John waits with baited breath. Without any warning, Tom turns, shotting Meg in the stomach. Meg stumbles against the pressure of the shot, but straightens herself, glaring at Tom.

“You shot me!” she cries out, the injustice she is feeling outweighing the impossible fact thatshe is still standing after being shot by ‘the Colt’. “I can’t believe you just shot me!”

“It’s a fake,” Tom said, throwing the gun aside as Meg turns her glare to John.

“You’re dead, John,” Meg said, advancing on him. “Your boys are dead. Your son’s little whore is dead.”

“I never used the gun. How could I know it wouldn’t work?” John lied easily.

“I’m so not in the mood for this. I’ve just been shot!” Meg yelled at him.

“Well, then, I guess you’re lucky the gun wasn’t real,” John quipped.

“That’s funny, John,” Meg said with an overly forced smile. “We’re gonna strip the skin from your bones, but that was funny.”

Meg looks at Tom, as if waiting for instructions, and John took this chance to make his escape, running from the room and locking the door behind him.

Making a quick dash down, he finds the trapdoor leading to the boiler room, Meg and Tom hot on his trail as he runs. Turning on the faucet as he runs past, water comes spraying out across the floor, blocking the way between him and the demons. Meg and Tom pause for a moment, before Tom heads forward, his shoe sizzling and burning as he steps into the pool of water on the floor. He jumps back, shrieking in pain, as Meg glares through the water at John.

“Holy water, John,” Meg said. “Real cute.”

John just smiled, turning and making his easy escape unfollowed.

@~~>~~~

While John’s side of things were just full of action, Sam, Dean and Emma were still waiting, getting less patient by the minute, keeping watch over Monica and baby Rosie. With nothing else to do, Dean was on his phone, tryng to get through to John.

“Dad’s not answering,” he said, hanging up unsuccessfully.

“Maybe Meg was late. Maybe cell reception’s bad,” Sam said, trying to come up with all of the none worrying theories.

“Yeah, well….” Dean began, letting the end of that sentence trail off. Before he could finish it, the car radio switched itself on, static the only thing that was getting though.

“Guys, wait. Listen,” Emma said, making the boys take notice of the first sign. The next came as the lights on the outside of Monica’s house began to flicker rapidly, leaves blowing across the street ominously like something out of a scene from a cheesy horror movie.

“It’s coming,” Emma said as the trio jumped out of the car.

@~~>~~~

John had forgotten one of the most basic things about hunting. Don’t believe you’re safe until you know it for a fact. You just get sloppy when you think you’re safe.

He found out the hard way as, getting to his truck, h found the tyres had been slashed.

“Damn it,” John cursed out loud, trying to find another way to get himself far away from the warehouse.

Running round and round the building, he finds nothing but a lot of dead ends. Going to plan B… or perhaps C by now, John takes out his cell phone, dialling out to Sam, Dean and Emma. But before he can finish dialling, some unseen force threw him back against the wall, pinning him there.

Screaming out, he was left helpless as Tom came out from behind the building.

@~~>~~~

Seeing the signs, Sam, Dean and Emma had immediately snuck their way into the house, Dean picking the lock to let them in. But their sneak attack hadn’t been so sneaking as moments later, Monica’s husband, Charlie, came flying in from the other room, swinging a baseball bat directly at Dean’s head. Dean ducked Justin time, swinging around to easily pin Charlie against the nearest wall.

“Get out of my house!” Charlie screamed at all thee of them. “Get out of my house!”

“Mr. Holt, please,” Emma said, as always trying to calm the situation.

“Be quiet and listen to me,” Dean said, getting straight to the point. “We’re trying to help you, okay?”

“Charlie, is everything okay down there?” Monica’s vice called from upstairs.

“Monica, get the baby!” Charlie called out to his wife.

“No, don’t go in the nursery!” Sam screamed, acing up the stairs after her.

“You stay away from her!” Charlie screamed after him.

Upstairs, Monica had already entered Rosie’s nursery. And just like in the vision Sam had, she walked in on the demon stood over Rosie’s crib.

“What are you….?” Monica called out.

The demon turned away from the crib for a second to look at Monica, pinning her back to the wall as he pins his eyes on her. Just as his powers were raising her up onto the ceiling, Sam burst in, knocking the demon’s attention to him, his yellow eyes flashing towards Sam.

Both the hunter and the wounded boyfriend in Sam spring to the surface, immediately raising the gun in his hand to take a shot, but the demon dissolved into a cloud of smoke, the bullet passing harmlessly through him and burying itself into the wall. As the demon disappeared, so did his power over Monica, who collapsed down to the floor, Sam moving to her side to help her up.

“Where the hell did it go?” Sam cried out as Dean and Emma entered the room, Sam steering Monica away.

“My baby!” Monica cried as she struggled to get back into the room.

“Emma’s got her,” Sam said, watching as Emma rushed further into the room, scooping Rosie up out of the crib and into her arms seconds before the crib went up in flames.

Outside, Charlie watched as the bedroom that his daughter slept him burst into uncontrollable flames, the window blowing out into shards across the front lawn. Movement at the front door, caught his eye and he looked down to as Sam, Dean and Monica ran out, Emma running close behind with Rosie in her arms.

“You get away from my family!” Charlie immediately screamed at the intruders.

“Charlie, don’t! They saved us. They saved us,” Monica said, taking Rosie from Emma’s arm. She stepped back, moving to stand beside her husband who softly kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”

Dean and Emma smiled at the sweet young family, still alive and together, as Sam turned back to the house, looking up into the scene of the crime just in time to see a silhouette of the demon still inside the room.

“It’s still in there,” Sam screamed out, hading to race back into the house, had it not been for Dean and Emma holding him back.

“Sam, no!” Dean screamed at his brother, him and Emma wrestling to keep Sam from going back into the house.

“Let me go! It’s still in there!” Sam screamed against their protests.

“Burning to the ground, it’s suicide!” Emma told him.

“I don’t care!” Sam said, pure honesty and conviction in his voice.

“I do!” Emma yelled back at him, making Sam pause and look down at her… just long enough for the demon to vanish once again.

@~~>~~~

Having skipped out long before the authorities got there, knowing the family were alright, Sam, Dean and Emma were now holed in back in the motel room, waiting for news from John on how his end of the deal went. Which had Sam and Emma sitting on the beds while Dean stood near the table, trying to get through to John.

“Come on, Dad. Answer your phone, damn it,” Dean said, hanging up as he got no answer once again. “Something’s wrong.” From across the room, he got no answer, Emma not knowing what to say while Sam was still staring intently at the floor.

“You hear me?” Dean said, looking up at the two of them. “Something’s happened.”

“If you had just let me go in there, I could have ended all this,” Sam said, still on this topic.

“Sam, the only thing you would have ended was your life,” Emma repeated to him for what felt like the hundredth time.

“You don’t know that,” Sam said.

“So, what, you’re just willing to sacrifice yourself, is that it?” Emma said.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re damn right I am,” Sam said, standing up away from Emma.

“Yeah, well, that’s not gonna happen, not as long as I’m around,” Emma said defiantly.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about, Emma?” Sam said, turning back to her. “We’ve been searching for this demon our whole lives. It’s the only thing we’ve ever cared about.”

“Sam, I wanna waste it,” Emma reminded him. “I do, okay? But it’s not worth dyin’ over.”

“What?” Sam said as if not believing she would really say that of all things.

“I mean it,” Emma repeated. “If huntin’ this demon means you gettin’ yourself killed, then I hope we never find the damn thing.”

“That thing killed Jess. That thing killed Mom,” Sam felt the need to remind everyone in the room.

“You said yourself once… that no matter what we do, they’re gone,” Dean repeated Sam’s old word. “And they’re never comin’ back.”

That was very much the wrong thing to say as Sam suddenly sprang forward, ramming Dean into the nearest wall. Emma sprung to her feet as well to separate, flashbacks of reversed roles on a bridge in Jericho coming to her mind.

“Guys, please, not this again,” she said as she tried to pry them apart.

“Don’t you say that!” Sam said, turning to repeating Dean’s old words angst him. “Don’t you… not after all this, don’t you say that!”

“Sammy, look, the four of us, that’s all we have. And that’s all I have. Sometimes I feel like I’m barely holdin’ it together, man,” Dean told him, Sam letting him slip from his grip as he let Dean’s words sink in. “Without you and Emma and Dad….”

“Dad….” Sam breathed out, turning him back on Dean and Emma. “He should have called by now. Try him again.”

Dean did just that, picking up his cell phone and dialling John’s number as Emma leant into his side. This time, the phone was answered, only it was the voice Dean expected to hear on the other end.

“You boys really screwed up this time,” Meg’s voice spoke into his ear.

“Where is he?” Dean said, barely containing his anger and frustration.

“You’re never gonna see your father again.”

Dean instinctively felt his grip on the phone tighten, glancing between Emma at his side and Sam across the room as he tried to calculate just what their next move was going to be.


End file.
